


I Don't Want To Be Your Friend (i wanna kiss your neck)

by LayALioness



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends to Lovers, High School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 20:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 58,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10521123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: She finds Bellamy back on that floral couch. They’d moved it into the screened room for the winter, and then back out again once the days grew long and warm. It was becoming another tradition, apparently.And so was this; him smoking on the sofa, her head on his shoulder, voices low in the early morning while everyone else was asleep and the world felt like it belonged to them, just for the moment.“Someone had fun,” he teases, flicking at a spot on her neck. Clarke reaches up to feel the tender skin; Glass must have given her a hickey while they were getting carried away.She flushes, but he’s looking back at the sunrise. “I always have fun,” she reminds him, and he groans.“Yeah, I remember.”“This is my favorite part, though,” Clarke says, curling up a little more against him so he’ll put his arm around her for warmth. She’s still kind of drunk, so she’s not sure if she’s making sense, but she trusts that he’ll get it. Bellamy always seems to understand what she means. “Just--us. It’s my favorite.”Bellamy stubs out his cigarette and leans back against her. “Mine too.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of those, supposed to be a short fluffy oneshot about bellamy and clarke growing up together and summer parties, and it turned into a monster. I'm not really sure how.
> 
> Note: there is some talk of a suicide attempt, although no one dies, and some generally shitty parenting.
> 
> ALSO there is a LOT of underage drinking and recreational drug use in this. Just assume that I was that boozy 13/14yo that your parents didn't want hanging out with you.
> 
> title from fallingforyou by The 1975

Clarke doesn’t remember meeting Octavia Blake. She knows it must have happened; Octavia is almost a year and a half younger than her, so it’s not like they met when she was born. But they were in the same childcare unit for employees at the hospital where their moms worked--as a surgeon and a launderer, respectively--and the time before Clarke knew Octavia Blake is like a blank space in her memory.

Likewise, she doesn’t remember when she met Bellamy because even though he’s so much older, he and Octavia have always been a package deal. You can’t get one without the other, which becomes exceedingly apparent when the girls are old enough to spend time together outside of daycare.

Clarke goes to a private elementary school, with strict rules and uniforms, and Octavia doesn’t. Clarke doesn’t mind school; she likes learning, and she likes that she shares all of her classes with Wells, and gets to sit with him at lunchtime. But she misses being loud and messy with Octavia, coming up with games to play and dressing up with the patterned scrubs that the nurses let the kids wear.

She still goes to the hospital in the afternoons, and she remembers being nervous the first day of school, because she wasn’t sure Octavia would be there, or wouldn’t be excited to see Clarke again. Octavia went to a public school and was in kindergarten, while Clarke was starting the first grade. What if made new friends at her own school, and decided that she didn’t need Clarke anymore?

But of course Octavia _was_ there, waiting, wearing an electric blue tutu over polka dotted jeans, and she gave a big toothy grin when she saw Clarke. “Oh, good,” she said, like she was worried too, and they pestered each other about their different schools and classmates, each a little jealous of the other’s life.

“You get to wear whatever you want,” Clarke pointed out, reaching back to itch at her collar, where her navy blue cardigan laid scratchy and unbearable against her skin.

Octavia makes a face. “Yeah but you guys get the best lunches.”

“We don’t get chocolate milk.”

Octavia looked outraged at that. “Really?” She seemed to take it as a sign that yes, her school _must_ be better, since they had chocolate milk, and things were easy again between them.

At eleven, Bellamy was too old for daycare, and so he spent his afternoons studying in the hospital cafeteria until it was time to go home.

“You should come sleep over,” Octavia tells Clarke that Friday, when her brother comes to collect her. He’s taller than both of them, skinny in his too-big t-shirts with cartoon characters that Clarke never recognizes. He and Clarke don’t talk much, but they’re comfortable around each other after so many years. He isn’t her friend, not like Octavia, but he’s _Bellamy_ , a constant presence throughout her life.

He gives his sister a look. “Did you ask mom about that?”

Octavia fidgets from foot to foot, which means she probably hasn’t. “Can you do it?”

“She’ll say yes to you before she says yes to me,” he says, but he’s smiling a little, and agrees to do it anyway. Bellamy always ends up doing whatever Octavia asks him to, and it makes Clarke wish she had a sibling too.

Octavia’s mom says it’s fine, and so does Clarke’s, so the girls pile into the backseat of Mrs. Blake’s station wagon while Bellamy sits up front. They play a game where they try to make the alphabet out of passing license plates and signs on the drive to Octavia’s house, goading Bellamy until he finally agrees to join in. Eventually they pulled up a drive made of loose gravel, on the outskirts of the city. Octavia doesn’t live in the suburbs like Clarke does, filled with rows of pretty-looking houses that are all shaped the same, and a fountain at the front of the cul-de-sac. But the Blake house is interesting-looking in the way that most old houses are, with a big wrap-around porch and two rocking chairs that croak like frogs when Clarke and Octavia clamber up on them.

It isn’t Clarke’s first sleepover; Wells stayed with her family for a week once while his parents were on a trip, and he slept on the trundle bed in her room so they could stay up late talking. But it is her first sleepover with another girl, and Octavia isn’t like Wells. She decides that she’s tired of playing outside, so they go up to her bedroom and layer colorful scarves around their necks and slip old tin rings on their fingers and prance around like royalty.

“I’m a princess,” Clarke tells Bellamy, when he finds them in the kitchen. He only rolls his eyes a little, clearly too big for their make-believe games.

“Sure you are.”

“I’m a _dragon_ princess,” Octavia declares, and he laughs.

The Blake house is filled with _things_. Stacks of books litter the furniture, and there are sweaters and balls of loose socks kicked to the sides and forgotten. Old newsletters and gnawed ends of colored pencils and half-empty bottles of soda and paper plates collect in small islands of clutter throughout the rooms. Clarke’s parents are both fairly fastidious, never leaving unwashed dishes in the sink for more than a few hours, so the lived-in chaos of the Blake house feels new and a little exciting. She kicks her shoes off to join the rest of the mayhem instead of putting them neatly in the closet, and feels like she’s getting away with something.

Mrs. Blake goes to bed the minute they get home, so it’s Bellamy who makes them scrambled eggs and hamburger meat for dinner. They don’t have regular television, but they do have a TV with a built-in VHS player, so Bellamy puts in _The Little Mermaid_ for them to watch while they eat on the sofa. Clarke’s mom never lets her eat on the sofa.

It’s still early autumn, which Octavia says means that they’re allowed to sleep in the screened-in back room, where she had Bellamy drag two twin mattresses down from the attic. They’re far enough from the city that Clarke can hear cicadas and tree frogs chorusing outside, like she never can in her own home, and she lays awake listening to them after Octavia falls asleep. But it’s a new house, and Clarke isn’t tired, so she sneaks out through the belly of the house to the porch so she can see the stars.

Bellamy is already out there, sitting in one of the chairs and reading a Goosebumps paperback that’s missing half the cover. Clarke hesitates for a minute, wondering if she should go back inside.

But he notices her before she can, and sets his book down. “What’s up, Clarke? Need anything?”

She shakes her head. “I can’t sleep.”

Bellamy shifts a little in his chair, making it groan. “Want me to tell you a story?” he offers. “That usually helps Octavia.”

Clarke’s dad likes to tell her stories sometimes, when he comes home early enough that she isn’t asleep yet. He’ll perch on the end of her bed and make up magical dream worlds for her. They always star a princess, and her name is always Clarke.

“Okay.” She climbs up on the chair beside his, and settles in to listen. But Bellamy doesn’t tell her about a magical kingdom ruled by a girl; instead, he tells her about the stars.

“That one’s Orion,” he points, drawing the shape of him in the air so she can see it. “He was a famous hunter, and those were his two dogs.”

Clarke doesn’t know when she falls asleep, but she wakes up in the morning to Octavia jumping up and down on her mattress, in the screened room.

“Bell’s making pancakes!” she announces, and once she’s satisfied that Clarke is awake, she rushes off down the hallway.

Clarke shuffles into the kitchen a few minutes later and finds Bellamy at the stove. He smirks over at her. “Morning, princess.”

She makes a face, but he just laughs, and then Octavia reminds them that _I’m a princess too, Bell_ , while he pokes her with the spatula.

She and Octavia find some loose sheets of paper, the smooth blank white kind that her dad uses for the computer printer, and a few markers, and decide to draw. Octavia covers her pages in butterflies with all sorts of different patterns and jagged-shaped wings. Clarke draws what she remembers from Bellamy’s stories about the stars, doing her best to get the details right.

He comes to look over their shoulders, and pauses when he sees Clarke’s bright blue Orion, complete with his sword and belt. “Is that Orion?”

“Yeah!” Clarke beams up at him, and shows him the rest of the series.

“These are really good, Clarke.”

“You can have them if you want,” she shrugs, handing them over. She can always make more when she gets home.

He asks her twice if she’s _sure_ he can have them, which makes her laugh, before he finally takes them up to his room. Octavia sticks her butterfly drawings on the fridge with some magnets, so everyone can admire them.

Mrs. Blake drives Clarke with her to the hospital, where her mother is waiting to pick her up.

“Did you have fun?” she asks, smiling when Clarke has to fight against a yawn.

“Yeah,” she says, and she sleeps over at the Blake house again the next weekend, and then the next.

 

Octavia and Clarke are very different, but that’s what makes them such great friends. Octavia is always burning up for adventure, quick to start a race or a quest that takes them through the nearest park or a contest to see who can jump the highest. Clarke is less active, choosing to read or draw instead, and so they usually end up compromising. Clarke will let Octavia tug her outside for a few hours, pretending to be fairies or tossing rocks across the little ravine around the back of the house, and then Octavia will let Clarke pick a movie to watch.

They start bringing treats for each other from their school lunches; Clarke’s school likes to serve fruit cups and little salads with baby spinach and croutons, and Clarke _hates_ fruit cups and salads. But Octavia loves them, and her school gives out cheesy bread with marinara sauce, which is Clarke’s favorite, and chocolate milk, so they start packing snacks away in their bags to trade with each other after.

Clarke paints Octavia’s nails, using a toothpick to make the lines straight like her mom taught her, and Octavia teaches Clarke how to braid her hair without looking. Clarke likes that when one of them isn’t good at something, the other can usually help.

And of course, if neither of them can, there’s always Bellamy.

Octavia always falls asleep first, and Clarke always goes to find him so he can tell her about the stars again, or about whatever he’s learning about in school. Last time, it was the Trojan War, and he got really into it, using his hands and different voices for the characters. He always carries her back to bed by the morning.

It’s the afternoon, and nice out, and Clarke and Bellamy are watching _The Last Unicorn_ when Octavia declares that she wants to have a wedding.

“What, right now?” Bellamy asks, joking, but Octavia says yes.

“Clarke you have to be the bride.”

“Why me?” Clarke asks, uncomfortable. She doesn’t know the first thing about weddings, and she’s only half-listening anyway, trying to pay attention to the film. “It’s your wedding.”

“I’m the wedding _planner_ , duh,” Octavia corrects. “And Bell’s the groom. I can’t marry my own _brother_.”

“You just want to tell us what to do,” Bellamy sighs, and Octavia doesn’t deny it.

Of course they go along with it; when Octavia gets it into her head to do something, it’s easier just to humor her. And anyway, it’s sort of fun. They pick flowers from the neighbor’s garden, and a few weeds that look like flowers just because. Octavia finds an old cheap veil from somewhere in the attic, and she braids Clarke’s hair around it like an expert.

She doesn’t have a white dress that Clarke can wear, but she has a pretty blue one, so Clarke puts that on instead. Bellamy just wears his jeans.

“What about the priest?” he asks, and Octavia waves an old Bible she got from the bookshelf.

“That’s me, obviously.”

“I don’t think girls can be priests,” Clarke says, but Octavia ignores her and opens the book.

She gives up within a second, because the words are weird and long and the print is too tiny, so instead she just repeats what she remembers from various wedding scenes on TV. She has Bellamy and Clarke hold hands while she does it, and Bellamy’s fingers are warm, and a little rough. Clarke knows hers are clammy, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Clarke, do you take Bellamy as your husband?” she asks.

“ _Fake_ husband,” Clarke says, which makes him grin. “I do.”

“Bell, do you take Clarke as your wife?”

Bellamy’s grin widens. “My _fake_ wife,” he teases, squeezing her fingers a little. “Sure.”

Octavia huffs at both of them, for ruining her mental image, but she continues the ceremony anyway. “You may kiss the bride.”

“The _fake_ bride,” Clarke and Bellamy say in unison, and Octavia glares at them.

Bellamy pecks Clarke on the mouth, dry and sudden, nothing like the movies but that’s okay. Clarke thinks movie kisses look kind of gross, and wet.

It still makes her blush, though. It’s her first kiss.

Bellamy doesn’t seem embarrassed at all, but he’s twelve, and she’s sure he’s kissed a lot of girls by now. Twelve seems so grown up. She’ll probably have kissed other boys, by the time she’s twelve.

“Does this make me a prince?” he asks her. “Since you’re a princess.”

Clarke pokes him in the ribs, in protest.

“Now for the cake!” Octavia says, and Bellamy frowns at her.

“What cake?”

Octavia gives him an incredulous look. “It’s a _wedding_ , Bell. There has to be a cake!”

He sighs, but follows her back to the house, with Clarke trailing after. “Was all of this a set up to get me to make you guys cake?”

“You can’t prove anything,” Octavia says airily.

That night, Clarke wanders downstairs at night to root around for a snack, and finds Bellamy curled up on the couch with a book and an old, ratty blanket. He looks up at her with a smile, voice low so they don’t wake his sister or mom.

“Can’t sleep?”

She shakes her head, and he stands up with a stretch, shuffling into the kitchen. He makes them some hot chocolate, the package kind with the little marshmallows, and then when Clarke still isn’t feeling sleepy, she asks him to make a pillow fort with her.

Clarke has done this once before, with Wells, but they’d had to clean it up right after, because her mom doesn’t like anything out of place.

Bellamy helps her construct what they can with the quilts and throw pillows already downstairs, using the old coffee table as a frame, and then he goes upstairs to fetch more blankets and pillows until they’re comfortably surrounded by soft, cotton walls.

When it’s finished, they crawl inside. There’s only really enough room for them to lay down side by side, and Bellamy brings his book and a flashlight.

“What is that?” Clarke asks around a yawn. There’s a drawing on the cover, of some kids and what looks like a giant wasp that’s about to attack them.

“The Secrets of Droon,” Bellamy says, and then he reads the first few chapters out loud until she falls asleep.

 

When Clarke is nine years old, she gets a bike for Christmas. It’s the kind without training wheels, and it’s a pretty dark red color, and Clarke loves it immediately. She spends Christmas day with her parents and the Jahas, like every year, but the next day she pesters her dad to drive her and her new bike over to Octavia’s, so she can show it off.

Octavia is jealous, of course. She’s almost eight, and craves freedom the way most kids crave food. She eyes the bike, hungry, and they take turns running with it on the gravel, because neither of them can quite master balancing on their own, and their legs are a little too short to reach the pedals comfortably.

Bellamy comes outside to find them after half an hour, because while it isn’t snowing it’s still cold, and Octavia hasn’t got a coat on. He’s fourteen now, still tall and gangly, and he’s been growing his hair out, so it hangs down at his shoulders. He watches them for a moment, fighting a laugh, before finally giving in.

“You could just _teach_ us instead of being a butt,” Octavia grumbles, wiping the powdered gravel from her palms, where she fell and had to catch herself.

“But that’s not as much fun as watching you fail,” he teases, tossing a worn jean jacket at her face. But of course he teaches them, staying outside until they both have a tentative grip on balancing and pedalling at the same time, and have managed to break without flipping over the handlebars.

The sun is setting by the time Bellamy herds them both inside, where he makes spaghetti while they watch the Grinch movie with Jim Carey. It turns out Bellamy bought a bunch of cheap tubes of colored icing from the Dollar General, and made some gingerbread cookies the day before, which he sets out on the counter for them to decorate.

Well, Clarke and Bellamy decorate. Octavia mainly just nibbles on the limbs and heads, until she has a collection of headless gingerbread people missing various arms and legs. Bellamy teases her about it, so she takes the tube of red icing and lines her bite marks so it looks like they’re bleeding.

“Your teachers are gonna tell mom that you’re a sociopath,” Bellamy tells her, but Octavia just eats her bloody cookies with a cheery smile, until her teeth are stained red too.

Clarke gets some green icing on her fingers while she’s making one of her cookie men into Shrek, which obviously means that she has to wipe them off on Bellamy’s arm, since he’s right next to her. He grimaces at the mess on his skin while Octavia and Clarke giggle, and then he takes the blue tube, and spreads a blob of the stuff directly onto Clarke’s cheek.

It’s a war after that.

Icing gets on their arms and chins and necks and clothes and _hair_ , until the three of them are a tie-dyed, sticky mess, laughing and howling in the kitchen. They only stop when Mrs. Blake storms in from her bedroom, looking wild-eyed and murderous, and Clarke stands red-faced to the side while the siblings are scolded.

She’s still fidgeting, feeling uncomfortable, when their mom goes back to bed and they stay quiet for a moment before sharing a look.

“I don’t think she appreciates our artwork,” Bellamy says, dry, and then they’re laughing again, breathless and giddy with it, high on the holiday and sugar.

Clarke helps him wash the counters and the floor while Octavia pretended she had to go to the bathroom, to get out of it.

“I think she might actually die if she ever tried to clean something,” Bellamy grumbles, and Clarke swats him with a dish towel, defensive. Octavia’s her best friend, but in the end, she knows he’s right.

Bellamy raises a single brow at her, like a dare, and Clarke waits for a beat before she swats him again. But he catches the towel, ready for it, and grins. “Oh it’s _on_ , princess.”

Octavia comes out to find them batting at each other, a towel in each hand, trying to swallow their laughter so they don’t wake his mom up again.

“You guys are battling _without_ me?” Octavia asks, betrayed, and Bellamy nods at Clarke before they both turn to gang up on her for leaving them with all the work.

They all collapse in the living room eventually, TV on with the volume low, stretched out lazily along the sofa and carpeted floor. Octavia falls asleep first, as usual, leaving Bellamy and Clarke laying awake with the flickering lights of the television and the plastic white Christmas tree in the corner that she’d helped them decorate two weeks ago.

“What’s middle school like?” Clarke asks. She has an early birthday, which means she’s starting sixth grade next year, and she’ll be a year younger than everyone else. Bellamy makes a face at the ceiling. He just recently got glasses, the cheap clunky plastic kind, and they’re sitting crooked on his nose.

“Harder than elementary school,” he says, and she rolls her eyes.

“I know that part, already.”

“I dunno,” he shrugs. “It’s _middle school_. There’s no more recess or nap time, but you can sit wherever you want at lunch, and the tests are harder. You have to take sex ed--”

“What’s that?” Clarke asks, and he eyes her a little, like he isn’t sure he should answer.

“It’s a class.”

“What kind of class?”

Bellamy leans up on his elbows so he can squint over at her. “It’s a health class. They teach you about your body and, uh, stuff. Where babies come from.”

“Oh,” Clarke hums, considering. “I thought they came from the hospital.” She’s seen the room where they keep the babies, when she visits her mom at work.

Bellamy grins. “Yeah, usually. Sometimes people have them at home, though. But I can’t tell you too much, because it’s supposed to be a surprise when you learn about it in the class. You don’t want to be a cheater, do you?”

She sort of does, because she’s curious, but in the end she shakes her head. What if she got in trouble, for finding out early? It’s probably best to just wait, or ask her parents. She can’t get in trouble if it’s her parents that tell her.

Bellamy nods, apparently finished with the conversation, and takes his glasses off before laying down again. “Don’t worry about it, Clarke. You’re smart, and you’re going to a private school again, right?” He waits for her to nod. “So you’ll do fine.”

“Merry Christmas, Bell,” she whispers, tugging the blanket from where Octavia’s hogging it, at the other end of the couch.

“Merry Christmas, Clarke.”

She asks her dad where babies come from-- _besides_ hospitals--on the drive home in the morning, and he almost crashes the car.

 

Things change once Octavia starts junior high. Clarke’s own school is on the other end of town, in the business district. She still has to wear a uniform, and keep her hair braided back, and she still turns all of her work in on time and sits in the front row and spends most of her time with Wells in the library.

But Octavia has never been bad at making new friends, like Clarke is. It used to worry Clarke, like maybe Octavia might find a new best friend that she had more in common with, a best friend that went to her school and lived in her neighborhood and didn’t struggle so much with socialization.

But she never did, and eventually Clarke grew content with the knowledge that even if Octavia was a social butterfly and had over three hundred friends on Facebook, Clarke was the only one who practically lived at her house.

And then one afternoon she walks in to find Octavia playing Guitar Hero with two boys Clarke has never seen before.

“Yes, suck it!” Octavia crows, acing an Aerosmith song. She sticks her tongue out at each of the boys, who seem to take it good naturedly, and then turns to beam at Clarke, hopping down from where she’d been standing on the couch cushion.

“Clarke! This is Jasper and Monty, from my biology class.” She wrinkles her nose in distaste. “We had to cut open a _frog_ today, and Jasper got frog juice all over his face.”

“It wasn’t _all_ over,” Jasper protests, looking at them from over the back of the sofa. “Just my chin, and in my mouth. A little.”

“Because that’s better,” Monty says, and Jasper nudges him with a foot.

Bellamy comes home sometime later, because the middle school lets out almost a whole hour before the high school does, and for a moment he just stands in the doorway and _glares_ at the boys. “Who the hell are you two?”

Octavia glowers back at him. “You never get mad when Clarke’s here.”

“That’s because it’s _Clarke_ ,” he says, like it’s obvious, and gives Clarke herself a nod in greeting. “Hey, princess.”

She heaves a sigh at him, feeling the tension that comes from being around strangers slowly evaporating. Bellamy always seems to make her relax. “When will you let that _go_?”

He grins brightly at her. “Never.” Bellamy shoots the boys a final, pointed look, and then says “I want everyone’s hands visible at all times,” before going upstairs to drop off his bag. He comes back down a few seconds later, clearly intending to babysit them, and make sure nobody’s doing anything _untoward_.

Octavia looks ready to bite his head off, and Clarke has to swallow a grin. Monty turns to her.

“Are they always like this?”

“These days? Usually.”

Jasper leans in, wide-eyed, and whispers “He looks like he wants to skin us alive.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bellamy says, settling into the easy chair beside Clarke with a bowl of dry cereal, which he starts to eat with his hands. Jasper jumps so high that Clarke worries he’ll actually hit the ceiling, like the cork of a champagne bottle. Bellamy gives him a sunny smile. “I’d definitely kill you first. Less clean-up.”

Octavia rolls her head so hard they look like they might fall out of her head. “You’re such an asshole.”

Bellamy pops a handful of corn flakes in his mouth, unapologetic. “Yep.”

Clarke manages to relax completely after that. It helps that Monty and Jasper are such nerds and almost as awkward as her. And it helps that Bellamy is there, giving her someone else to sit off to the side with, content to bicker with his sister and let Clarke steal his snacks.

Clarke plays a few rounds of the game, but she’s actually terrible and gives up eventually, pulling out her sketchbook instead. Bellamy pretends to be above it all for a while, texting on the prepaid phone that he bought with the money from his summer job, mowing lawns. It’s hard not to notice how much older he is, these days. He still hangs out with them regularly, but he’s seventeen now, with a social life and friends of his own. He smiles at his phone screen, and Clarke looks away, trying not to wonder who he’s talking to, and what about.

She isn’t sure when she started developing a crush on Bellamy Blake, but she wishes it would just go away.

Bellamy is older, and he never treats Clarke like she’s just some dumb kid, the way that most older boys would. And he’s _cute_ , with enough money that he can buy clothes that actually fit him now, and curls that always manage to look artfully messy, and muscle definition from his weightlifting class at school. When it’s summer, he tends to forego shirts completely and wander around the house in basketball shorts, and sometime between a year ago and today, Clarke started to actually notice. It’s done nothing to improve her life.

She knows he loves her, like she loves him. You can’t know someone for as long as they have, and just _not_ love them. But he’s almost done with high school, and she’s twelve. Even though he doesn’t treat her like a kid, she still is one, and it would probably be weird if he was into her too. So, it’s fine. It’s just a dumb crush; he’s older and hot and nice to her and she sees him almost everyday, of course she has a crush on him. She’ll get over it. He’ll move away to go to college, and she’ll meet someone her own age to date, and everything will be fine.

Eventually, Octavia goads him into playing a song, and it turns out he’s actually really talented.

“You’re good at this,” Octavia accuses, and he winks at her, passing the plastic guitar back to Monty before sitting down next to Clarke.

“I’m good at everything, O.” She snorts, but he ignores her, looking over Clarke’s shoulder at her sketch. She’s drawing them; Monty and Jasper made of wild limbs and goggles, Octavia looking like a warrior in the middle, and Clarke and Bellamy grinning off to the side together. “That’s good,” he says, breath warm on the side of her neck.

Clarke flushes. He doesn’t seem to notice, and his phone goes off, so he looks away while Clarke tries to slow down her heart beat.

It’s totally, definitely fine.

Monty and Jasper become a fixture at the Blake house after that, never one without the other, and Clarke stops worrying that one of them might take her place as Octavia’s favorite. She knows it’s an irrational fear; she and Octavia have been best friends since they were in _diapers_. But irrational fears aren’t reasonable, so that’s kind of how they work. She learns that Monty and Jasper are basically the same. They like to say they’ve been practically brothers since before they were born, since their parents were in the same pregnancy class and actually gave birth in neighboring rooms just a day apart.

“We’re twins from different wombs,” Jasper says.

“He tried to find a word for womb that rhymes with _twins_ for like, thirty minutes the other day,” Monty adds cheerfully.

“There are so many weird terms for vagina,” Jasper says with a shudder, like he’s been permanently scarred by Urban Dictionary.

“Dick Inns,” Octavia supplies after a moment of contemplation. They stare at her.

“How did you come up with that so fast?” Wells asks, amused. Clarke has taken to bringing Wells to the house with her; she figures if they’re going to make it a _group_ thing, they might as well go all-in. And it’s kind of nice, merging her two lives after so long.

“It’s a gift,” Octavia says, nose in the air. Clarke rolls her eyes.

They’re sitting outside on the brittle grass, because it’s the end of spring and it’s warm out. Clarke pedaled over on her bike, with Wells perched on the handlebars because his has a flat tire.

Bellamy comes home a few minutes later, hopping out of an old-fashioned truck that Clarke doesn’t recognize. He gives the driver one last wave, and wanders over to them, eyeing Wells up and down before giving a nod to the others.

“Octavia,” he glances at the boys, “Thing One and Thing Two.” He shoots a smirk at Clarke. “Princess,” and then settles on Wells. “New guy.”

“This is Wells,” Clarke says, and Bellamy’s face lightens a little. She’s told him about Wells.

“Good to meet you,” he offers, and then nudges Clarke in the knee with his combat boot, a little greeting all its own, before heading inside.

“He seems nice,” Wells says, sarcastic, and Octavia heaves an enormous sigh to let them all know how long-suffering she is.

“Imagine having to _live_ with him.”

Clarke almost blurts out that that isn’t quite fair, that Bellamy’s actually a great guy and a really good brother, but she doesn’t. He’s her friend, so of course she’s defensive of him, but her stupid crush still burns slow in the pit of her stomach, and so she swallows the words and offers Wells a grin.

“He just has to get used to you, before he starts being nice. He’s like a cat.”

“A _stray_ cat,” Octavia agrees. “With mange.”

“And sometimes rabies,” Jasper adds, and Octavia turns on him sharply.

“My _brother_ is not _rabid_ ,” she snaps, and Clarke nudges her a little, to get her to cool off. Octavia and Bellamy have the kind of relationship where _they’re_ allowed to talk shit about each other, but the moment that anyone else tries to join in, they’ll jump at their throats. Clarke kind of gets it, even though she’s an only child; no one else has earned it.

The boys and Octavia all fall asleep in a dog pile sometime after midnight, with the mattresses pushed together in the screened-in room. Clarke wanders into the kitchen for a glass of water, and sees the porch light is on outside.

Bellamy’s sitting on the front steps, sneaking a cigarette. Clarke sits down beside him, and he gives her a raised brow of acknowledgment, blowing the smoke out his nose.

“Those cause cancer, you know,” she says, and he snorts, and then coughs a little, wheezing. She gives him a look, like he’s just proven her point.

“You gonna tell on me?”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “No, but you should still quit. They’re bad for you. And they stain your teeth.”

Bellamy grins, showing off his perfect teeth, white even in the shadows. “I’ll take my chances.”

She thumbs at the chain around her neck; it’s cheap metal that sometimes turns her skin green, with a little clay brain on the end. Octavia has one with a little clay hand making the rock n’ roll sign, and Bellamy has one with a little clay heart. They picked them out at a flea market, which Bellamy took them to for Octavia’s birthday, borrowing the keys to the car from their mom. Clarke had gone with them, of course, and she and Octavia had skipped from booth to booth, trying on floppy hats with peacock feathers and giant movie-star sunglasses and strings of old pearls and long silky gloves, while Bellamy followed along and didn’t even sigh once. In the end, he found the booth with the hand-made clay pendants, and they’d each chosen one for themselves. He took them out for ice cream after, and Clarke ate so much of the stuff that she thought she’d be sick.

She eyes the cigarette in his hand, smoked almost all the way to the filter. “Can I try it?”

Bellamy doesn’t even think about it. “Not a chance.” He takes one last hit before stubbing it out on the toe of his boot, tossing the filter under the porch where his mother won’t find it. Clarke wonders if there’s a stash of them hidden down there. She isn’t sure when he picked up the habit.

“Why not?”

“If you wanna go start your bad girl phase, go for it,” he says, mild. “But it’s not gonna be because of me.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Trying _one_ cigarette doesn’t count as a bad girl phase, Bell. It’s perfectly normal for someone my age to experiment.”

Bellamy’s face goes a little off, but then he leans forward and ruffles her hair. “Good job. That sounded really grown up. You almost convinced me.”

Clarke makes a face at him, patting down her curls. “Ass.”

Bellamy clicks his tongue. “Now that’s no way to talk to your husband, princess.”

It doesn’t help when he does that, bringing up the fact that they _got fake married when she was seven_. Like it’s nothing. Just a joke, shared between friends, because she’s a little kid and he humors her.

But now he’s grinning again, warm and open, and her stupid heart flips because--this is her _favorite_ Bellamy. The one that comes out at night after the rest of the house is asleep, when it’s just the two of them. Clarke can almost trick herself into thinking that the look on his face is just for her.

“Wells seems nice,” he says, and he even seems to mean it.

It took him a while to warm up to Jasper and Monty, but Clarke thinks it’s probably because they came through Octavia, and Bellamy had to be sure their intentions towards his sister were pure. But Wells comes through Clarke, and she’s known him since before she’s known the Blakes, and Bellamy has known _about_ him for almost as long, so there’s already a sort of foundation there.

She tries not to mind that he doesn’t seem upset, or jealous of Wells. She _wants_ him to like Wells.

But if Bellamy brought someone new to the house, she knows she’d be jealous, and she wouldn’t know how to handle it, and Clarke hates it.

Crushes officially suck.

“He is nice,” she agrees. “He’s really sarcastic, too. You’ll like him.”

Bellamy hums a little, turning back to the stars like he always seems to do when there’s a lull in the conversation. Like he just can’t stop looking at them for long. “This place is always crawling with pre-teens these days,” he grumbles, and Clarke knows what he means.

The Blake house has basically become a revolving door; at any given time of day, one of Octavia’s friends will be over, sprawled on the sofa or asleep in the back room or poking through the fridge. Monty and Jasper’s collection of video games have practically taken up residence in the living room, since they spend more time over here than at their own homes, and Clarke keeps a spare change of pajamas in Octavia’s dresser for when she spends the night. She keeps a bottle of shampoo in the shower, too. She knows it must be kind of a lot for Bellamy, who’s nearly as unsociable as she is.

She thinks about the truck that afternoon, and the person that was driving it. It was a boy, and he looked like he was Bellamy’s age. “Why don’t you ever invite any friends over?”

Bellamy shrugs a shoulder, still looking up at the sky, and Clarke pokes him in the shoulder. He’s only wearing a t-shirt, the soft worn cotton one he sleeps in, and his skin feels warm through the material.

“Is it because you don’t have any?”

“I have friends,” Bellamy grouses. Clarke remains unconvinced.

“Uh-huh. Sure you do.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “I _have friends_ , Clarke. Maybe I just don’t want to subject them to my weirdo sister and _her_ friends.”

“And maybe you just don’t want to admit that you’re a loner and a nerd.”

“I don’t hide that I’m a nerd.” He nudges her shoulder with his own, teasing. “Besides, _you’re_ my friend. So I definitely have at least one.”

“Okay,” Clarke admits, as if her heart didn’t start pounding the moment he called her his friend, even if he’s only joking. “ _One_ friend.”

He pretends to think about it. “Does Octavia count?”

“She’s your sister, so, no.”

Bellamy gives a dramatic sigh. “So, just the one then. I think I’m good with that. Who needs more than one friend, anyway?”

Clarke knows the smile on her face is stupidly goofy, but she can’t really hope it. She hopes he either won’t notice, or just chalk it up to exhaustion. “Yeah,” she agrees. “You don’t want to get greedy.”

He pats her knee, hand warm against her skin, and unbearably platonic. “Exactly.”

 

The “End of Summer Slash Octavia’s Birthday Party Extravaganza”s don’t start until the August before Clarke starts eighth grade, and Aurora Blake has to leave town for a weekend to go to a funeral. She leaves Friday morning, and isn’t coming back until Monday, and Clarke wakes to the sound of the siblings helping their mom pack up her car before it pulls out of the driveway.

Octavia’s back in the room within moments, glancing down at Clarke with her hair piled up on her head in a bun that makes her look like a Dr. Seuss character. “Oh good, you’re up. We have to plan a party.”

“What party?” Clarke asks, still muzzy from sleep.

“The party we’re having while mom’s out of town,” Octavia says. “ _Obviously_.”

Clarke rubs at her eyes. “Does Bellamy know we’re having a party?”

Octavia pauses and then bellows “ _Bellamy!_ ” at the top of her lungs.

Upstairs, Bellamy swears and then there’s the sound of footsteps before he finally pokes his head into the room, looking irritated and very shirtless. “What the fuck, O?”

“Can we have my birthday party while mom’s gone?”

It’s distinctly different phrasing, because Octavia knows how to talk her brother into things, namely by framing it as a favor or present for her. Bellamy’s kind of a sucker.

He narrows his eyes, suspicious. “What kind of party?”

“A birthday one.” Octavia adds, “Clarke will be there.”

Bellamy glances at Clarke, still tangled up in sheets dampened from her sweat in the summer night. She tries to look innocent and respectable. She’s used to Octavia using her as a sort of buffer, these days, which, to be fair, Clarke is. She’s pretty sure she’s at least forty percent of the reason why Octavia hasn’t died yet, while Bellamy is fifty, and the other ten is just dumb luck.

Bellamy crosses his arms, which does a lot of different things to his biceps and abdominal muscles, and his whole upper body in general. Clarke pretends not to notice, and even if she did notice, she _definitely_ pretends not to care.

“Fine,” he agrees. “But I’m going to supervise. I don’t want a bunch of middle schoolers setting the house on fire.”

Octavia doesn’t even argue, instead looking pleased. “Can you invite some of your friends, too? It can be a joint thing, for both of us.”

Bellamy seems amused, in spite of himself. “My birthday’s in March, O.”

“So?”

He doesn’t seem to have an actual argument against the idea, so he shrugs. “Sure, I’ll call some people. When is it?”

“Tonight?” Octavia tries, hopeful. “That way we have tomorrow and Sunday to clean up after.” She’s clearly given some thought to this, and Bellamy eyes her a little.

“When did you decide we were gonna have a party, exactly?”

“When mom told us she was going out of town.”

He gapes at her. “That was _two weeks ago_.”

“Thanks, big brother,” Octavia bounds up to smack a kiss to his cheek. “You should probably get dressed, so we can go to Party City and get supplies.” She disappears into the belly of the house, and Bellamy looks at Clarke, shaking his head.

“She’s a menace.”

“You like it,” Clarke grins, but he just rolls his eyes.

“You coming to town with us?”

Clarke stretches, kicking the sheets off with a yawn. “Obviously.”

Bellamy snorts, walking off, presumably to find clothes. “Yeah, you’re right. Dunno why I even asked.”

They spend the rest of the late morning and afternoon running errands and setting up for the party. Bellamy walks down the block to borrow his friend Miller’s truck. It has a bench seat and no AC, so they roll down both windows and crowd in together with Clarke in the middle, since Octavia has longer legs and wants to stick her hand out the window.

It means that Clarke is pressed up against Bellamy’s side, knee to hip and hip to shoulder, but it’s fine. She’s just silently dying.

Bellamy drives the truck slowly, more cautious than when he’s driving his mom’s station wagon, before pulling into the Food Lion parking lot so they can stock up on microwavable pizzas and gatorade. Octavia elbows him in the side, whispering for him to get some marshmallow vodka because she _knows_ he has a fake ID, but Bellamy just messes up her hair and tells her to grab some actual marshmallows, if she’s so desperate.

“We’re not getting a kegstand,” he adds, firm, and Octavia grumbles incoherently until they get to Party City, and she immediately forgets about begging for alcohol and decides to beg for an enormous balloon gorilla twice her size, instead.

“Bell, I need this,” she tells him. “It’s my _birthday_!” She’s been saying that all day, even though her actual birthday isn’t for another week.

Bellamy checks the price and does some mental math. “If we get this, we can’t get any streamers,” he warns her, and Octavia takes a moment to deliberate.

Finally she nods. “I’m willing to make that sacrifice.”

Bellamy snorts. “I bet.” They end up just buying some disposable cups and plates with Star Wars patterns, and a few party poppers from the sale bin, and the gorilla. All in all, it’s a fairly light haul.

“Your high school friends will probably bring booze,” Octavia muses, like she’s consoling herself with the fact, as they drive home. The gorilla didn’t fit inside the cab of the truck, so she’s holding onto the string _very_ firmly while it blows along outside the window.

Bellamy gives a shallow laugh and takes a drag from the cigarette he’s got dangling outside _his_ window, before blowing the smoke from the side of his mouth, so they don’t have to breathe it in. He’s a very conscientious smoker. “I don’t know why you think my friends are the kind of people who show up with booze. You’ve never even met them.”

“I’ve met Miller,” Octavia says, and Clarke feels a flash of envy, like lightning, that she can’t really explain. It makes sense, that Octavia would have met at least _one_ of Bellamy’s friends, while Clarke hasn’t. She’s his sister, and she lives with him full-time. But Clarke can’t help feeling a little jealous, that there’s this part of Bellamy’s life that she isn’t privy to.

Which, again, is stupid. There are a lot of things about Bellamy that Octavia knows, while Clarke doesn’t, and never will. They’re _siblings_. Siblings are supposed to know each other better than anyone else.

“You’ve met him _twice_ , and only because he had to use the bathroom,” Bellamy scoffs. “You don’t even know his first name.”

“Miller seems like a booze guy,” Octavia continues, and Bellamy shakes his head at her.

In the end, Miller doesn’t bring any booze to the party, but Bellamy’s friend Murphy does.

“I don’t even know why I invited you,” Bellamy says, frowning down at the mini-keg of Heineken that Murphy’s set down on the table outside.

Bellamy, Octavia and Clarke had spent the rest of the afternoon moving the furniture from the porch and the screened room out to the lawn, because it was supposed to be warm and dry that night, and they thought it might be better to center the party outside, so they hopefully wouldn’t have to clean all the carpets.

“So _Clarke_ and _I_ won’t have to clean all the carpets,” Bellamy amends, and Octavia hits him with her purple flip flop.

People start showing up as the sun is setting, turning everything a hazy shade of orange. At first it’s just some people from Octavia’s school; Monty and Jasper with Jasper’s x-box, which they set up immediately, and Harper and Monroe from her study hall, and Atom from the soccer team, whom she has a crush on, and others that Clarke doesn’t know. Wells comes, with a present meticulously wrapped in shiny paper, and Clarke would bet money that it’s a gift basket from Bath and Body Works.

Bellamy’s friends arrive a little bit later, looking older and very _cool_ in the way high schoolers do, even though they’re only a few years older than the rest of them. Murphy isn’t the only one who brings alcohol, and Bellamy spends the night going back and forth between the kitchen and the yard, vigilantly guarding the keg and wine coolers, making sure that the middle schoolers aren’t sneaking any drinks that aren’t gatorade.

They still do, of course, but it’s hard to get past Bellamy. None of them have enough to actually get _drunk_ , though eventually Octavia whines enough about how _it’s her birthday_ that Bellamy lets her take a sip of his beer, and then hands it over to Clarke too, just because.

She takes a sip and makes a face at the taste. He laughs and takes it back.

“Beer is gross,” Octavia declares. “I want vodka.”

“Maybe next year,” Bellamy says, dry, and Octavia wanders off to flirt with Atom, who’s showing some of the others how to play hacky sack, a few feet away.

“You having fun yet?” Bellamy asks Clarke, taking a healthy drink from his beer like an old pro. She wonders how often he does this, goes to parties and drinks and chats. She didn’t think he’d be good at parties, but he seems to fit into the scene easily. And he was right, after all; he does have friends.

“I’m always fun,” Clarke says, and he grins, but then his eyes drift over her and she glances behind to see a pretty brunette making eyes at him. She’s one of his guests, introduced to Clarke as Roma. She looks effortlessly cool in a jean skirt and tank top that makes Clarke feel embarrassingly thirteen. “I’m gonna get some lemonade,” she tells Bellamy, before quickly heading towards the house. She doesn’t want to spend the night letting him babysit her, when she knows he’d rather be flirting with cute high school girls.

Clarke is leaning over with her head in the fridge, trying to decide between lemonade and grape soda, when she hears someone ask “Is there anything to eat in there?”

Clarke hits her head on the bottom of the freezer, trying to stand up, and when she finally straightens she finds a boy watching her with a soft smile.

He’s only a little taller than her, around her age, with shoulder-length hair and eyes that look like they’re laughing with her, not at her. Clarke sizes him up quickly.

“You go to Octavia’s school?”

He raises a brow. “You don’t?”

Clarke shakes her head. “Ark Academy.”

The boy gives a low whistle, which makes her flush. “Okay, princess. I’m Finn.”

It shouldn’t mean anything, that he just happened to use that nickname. It’s a common nickname, she knows. But it feels so _familiar_ , and it endears him to her almost immediately. It feels like a sign. “Clarke. And there isn’t much food in the fridge, but I _do_ know where O keeps her Halloween candy.”

They take a bag of Hershey’s kisses out onto the porch, and spend the night getting to know each other. Apparently Finn is new in town, and has gym class with Monty and Jasper, who were the ones that told him to swing by.

“I’m glad I did,” he grins, reaching up to brush a stray curl behind her ear, and Clarke feels warm down to her toes, but not because it’s summer.

There’s chocolate on his breath when he leans in to kiss her, and she lets him, moving her mouth against hers the way she’s seen it done before, hoping her inexperience isn’t noticeable.

Someone shouts, and they pull apart at the sound, before laughing when they realize it’s just Jasper, playing beer pong against Monroe. Or, gatorade pong, probably, since Clarke knows She may be newly thirteen, but Bellamy would never let a bunch of twelve year olds play drinking games with actual beer.

Across the yard, Octavia’s balloon gorilla is tied to a rock, floating in the air like a mascot for the whole party. People keep drawing mustaches on it with sharpies.

“Can I call you?” Finn asks, and Clarke writes her phone number on the skin of his arm, because he doesn’t have a cell phone. Her parents bought her one when she started seventh grade, for _emergencies_. She figures this counts.

Atom and Jasper eventually find them, collecting Finn for a pick-up game of soccer, because someone brought a ball. Octavia drapes herself onto Clarke not long after, watching the boys play with a spark in her eyes.

“So, you and Spacewalker,” she waggles her eyebrows, and Clarke ducks her head on a grin.

Finn is cute, glancing over at her every few minutes while he plays, missing the ball entirely one time because he’s distracted. He _likes_ her.

“Why is he called Spacewalker?”

“Apparently he’s really good on the balance beam,” Octavia shrugs. “He’s _cute_ , Clarke.”

“He’s a good kisser too,” Clarke says, and Octavia gasps dramatically, delighted, before pressing her nose to Clarke’s cheek with a giggle. She isn’t drunk, but Octavia always gets a little goofy when she stays up late. She smells like soda and her coconut shampoo.

“You’re my favorite,” she decides. “Well, you and Bell. My _favorites_ , Clarke.”

Clarke pats Octavia’s hand, leaning her head on her shoulder. “Mine too,” she agrees, and if Octavia realizes that Clarke is referring to both her and Bellamy, she doesn’t say.

There’s an old floral sofa sitting on the grass out back, because Mrs. Blake recently had a new couch delivered, the the floral one is supposed to be on the curb for the trash collectors, but Octavia thought it might serve as good seating for the party.

It’s where Clarke finds Bellamy in the hours before dawn, after everything has died down a little, and everyone else has either stumbled home, or passed out in the yard and living room. She tucked Octavia in, between Monty and Jasper on the living room floor, before heading out to find the older Blake.

He’s smoking, predictably, and alone, also predictably, head tipped back and eyes closed. Clarke watches him for a moment before flopping down beside him on the cushion. He grins around his cigarette and peeks an eye open to look at her.

“Have fun?”

“I told you,” she sighs, mirroring his pose. “I’m _always_ fun.”

Bellamy laughs, soft and gray with smoke, and for once he doesn’t fight her when Clarke reaches for the cigarette. “You won’t like it,” he warns her, and she knows it’s probably true, but she brings the yellow end to her lips anyway.

“I’ll take my chances.”

She hollows her cheeks, sucking in deeply, and then immediately gags, coughing so hard that her nose burns and her eyes water. To her surprise, Bellamy doesn’t laugh, just takes back the cigarette and smooths a hand up and down her spine, comforting. It tastes like smoke, dry and bitter in her mouth, and she isn’t really sure what she expected.

Clarke tries not to think about the fact that the filter was still wet from his mouth when she took it. He brings it back to his lips now, and she has to look away, still coughing a little.

“That sucks,” she says, and he laughs. “Beer sucks, and smoking sucks. I don’t know how people can enjoy them.”

“All grown up things suck,” Bellamy shrugs. “I guess you have to build up your tolerance first.”

“Your bullshit tolerance,” she says, and he laughs so hard he chokes on the next inhale. “Kissing doesn’t suck,” Clarke adds, quiet, and Bellamy glances at her from the corner of his eye.

“Well, they had to let us have _something_ to look forward to.”

He doesn’t move when she lays her head on his shoulder, warm and comfortable. He smells like summer and smoke and sunscreen. All the things that she associates with the Blake house, and home.

“Yeah,” she sighs, eyes slipping closed as the sky turns pink around the edges.

 

Clarke spends most of her free time with Finn, her _boyfriend_.

She has a _boyfriend_ , and she loves it. She loves that she gets to steal his jacket to wear when she’s not even that chilly, and she loves that she gets to hold his hands when they go to the movies or wander around the mall, and she loves that she gets to kiss him whenever she wants to, and she loves that she gets to introduce him as _Finn, my boyfriend_.

Finn seems to love it too, seems to love _her_. He likes to keep an arm around her shoulders when they sit on Octavia’s couch and watch their friends play video games, and he likes to play with her hair while he tells them stories about his old town, and he likes to kiss her when nobody’s paying attention, like they’re getting away with something.

He gets along with her friends, and they seem to like him too. It feels a little weird sometimes, when they have inside jokes from shared classes that she doesn’t really get, but she’s his _girlfriend_ , so it’s not like she doesn’t share things with him that other people don’t get, too.

They have dinner with her parents, and he charms them over too, talking about how he thinks he might join the Peace Corps, because he wants to help try and save the world.

Clarke feels more and more gone for him everyday.

Bellamy is the only one that doesn’t like him.

Well, Wells doesn’t like him much, either, but only because he worries that they’re moving too fast.

Bellamy, though, doesn’t like Finn at _all_.

She until Finn heads home after hanging out with her and Octavia, and then Clarke corners Bellamy in the kitchen while he makes himself a sandwich.

“Why don’t you like Finn?” Clarke stands in the doorway with her arms crossed, glaring at him. Bellamy doesn’t even glance over.

“I do like Finn.”

Clarke scoffs. “I’m not an idiot, Bellamy.”

He turns, face carefully blank as he takes a bite out of his sandwich. He waits until he’s chewed and swallowed, before saying “I’m just not sure how genuine he is.”

“How _genuine_ he is?”

Bellamy shrugs, but that isn’t good enough for her.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she presses, and he shrugs a second time.

“I dunno, it’s just--how well do you even know the guy?”

“Well enough,” Clarke snaps. “Way better than _you_ do, which you would, if you would even give him the time of day.” She turns abruptly on her heel and stomps off, fists clenched at her sides, because she knows that if she stays there, they’ll just end up in a shouting match that both of them will regret.

She crawls into bed with Octavia, feeling hot and heavy with anger. “He doesn’t even _know_ him.”

“He’s an idiot,” Octavia agrees, soothing. She’s still feeling things out with Atom, as far as Clarke knows, and they must be going well if she’s feeling nurturing. “Bell doesn’t know anything about anything.”

Of course he turns out to be right.

Raven Reyes transfers into Clarke’s class part-way through the semester, gorgeous and brilliant and Clarke likes her immediately, in a way she doesn’t usually like other people. Clarke tends to take her time getting to know someone before she decides to keep them, but she and Raven are assigned partners for a lab and everything feels natural and easy and she finds herself inviting Raven over to the Blakes’ house after school.

Finn is there already, having hitched a ride with Monty and Jasper, and Clarke is excited to introduce him and Raven up until the moment she realizes they already know each other.

“Finn?” Raven asks, lighting up like the sun.

Finn has enough time to look thoroughly shocked before Raven throws herself into his arm and kisses him full on the mouth.

Clarke watches in disbelief as her boyfriend kisses her _back_. Across the room, Monty and Jasper are staring openly, mouths agape. She isn’t sure where Octavia is, and she isn’t sure if she’s grateful that she isn’t there to witness the scene, because if she was, she probably would have impaled Finn by now on a fire poker.

Finally, Raven pulls back, still smiling and oblivious to the tension in the room. “I didn’t think I’d find you _this_ quickly,” she teases, and Finn’s gaze flicks to Clarke.

He looks guilty, which is what makes her break. Guilt means that he’s done something wrong, and she’s starting to think that _she’s_ the something.

“I didn’t think you were coming at all,” he tells Raven, and Monty makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, like he’s trying hard not to scream.

Clarke has never seen him look so angry. At his side, Jasper’s face shifts disdainfully. “Seriously, dude?”

Finn opens his mouth, glances at Clarke, looks away and closes it again. Raven watches his face for a moment, before turning to Clarke.

Clarke catches her eye and then drops her gaze. Raven takes a step back. “What’s going on?” When nobody answers her, she turns back to Finn. “Finn?”

He looks like he’s just swallowed vinegar. “Raven, I--” he starts, and then hesitates, but Raven nods like he’s just explained it all.

“I get it,” she says, and gives Clarke a tight smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “I think I should go.”

Clarke doesn’t answer--what does she even say? _Sorry for dating your boyfriend, who I didn’t know was your boyfriend_? How does she explain this, when she can’t even come up with words?

Raven leaves and then it’s just Finn standing awkwardly in the middle of the room while Clarke won’t meet his eyes, and Monty and Jasper look like they might have tried to hit him, if they were at all physical people.

Octavia chooses that moment to reappear. “What’d I miss?” she asks, clearly referring to the game, still paused on the television. She glances between the other four. “Um, _okay_ , does someone want to tell me whose dog just died?”

“Clarke’s,” Jasper says. “Metaphorically.”

Finn suddenly seems to find his voice again. “Clarke--”

She puts a hand up. “Don’t.”

Octavia takes one look at Clarke’s face before looking at Finn like she very genuinely wishes she could turn him into stone. “Leave,” she barks. “ _Now_.”

And this is why Clarke loves Octavia; she isn’t afraid to be the bitch, the one that everyone hates, or gets mad at. Clarke is bad at playing the bad guy, but Octavia seems to enjoy it every now and again.

Finn lets the screen door bang shut behind him, and Octavia tugs Clarke over to the couch. “Spill.”

“I don’t,” Clarke takes a breath. She still isn’t completely sure what just _happened_ , let alone how to explain it.

“Clarke met a new girl at school and brought her here, but she already knew Finn,” Monty says, and Clarke shoots him a grateful look. “She kissed Finn right in front of us. It looked--it looked like they were dating, too.”

Octavia’s face grows stormier by the second until Clarke actually starts to worry that she might go after Finn then and there. “I’m going to cut his balls off and staple them to his forehead,” she decides, and it sounds like a promise.

“Whose balls are we cutting off?” Bellamy asks, wandering in from upstairs. He’s shirtless and rubbing at his eyes, skewing his glasses, which means he probably just woke up from a nap.

Clarke is instantly mortified.

Bellamy had warned her, hadn’t he? He’d said he didn’t think Finn was genuine, and she’d yelled at him, and now it turns out he was _right_. She hadn’t spoken to him in a week, because of it.

“Finn’s,” Octavia says, and Clarke wishes she could sink through the floor. She just feels so...embarrassed. She’d hardly even _known_ Finn, and she’d let herself get sucked into his orbit, like she usually never does.

Bellamy makes a noise, not quite _I told you so_ , but still unsurprised. “What’d he do?”

“He was dating another girl while he dated Clarke,” Jasper says.

“We _think_ ,” Monty adds, because Monty is supposed to be the unbiased one. But even he seems angry about it on Clarke’s behalf.

It’s sweet, really. She has a lot of people on her side.

“Douchebag,” Bellamy mutters, crossing over to flop on Clarke’s other side, on the couch. Suddenly there is a lot of warm, freckled skin right against her, and if it were any other occasion, Clarke might actually be able to enjoy it. He puts an arm around her, tugging her into a half-hug. “Wanna egg his house?”

Clarke snorts. “Aren’t you supposed to be older and mature?”

“Shut up, egging is totally fucking mature. I’m the most mature person you know.”

“Definitely not,” Clarke says, but it worked, and she’s fighting a smile. It’s hard not to smile, when Bellamy is being warm and comforting and ridiculous. “That would be Wells.”

“That kid was born as a thirty year old,” he says. “Unfair comparison.”

“I’m still cutting off his ballsack,” Octavia warns. “Get ready for that expulsion note, Bell.”

“Why are you telling me?” he asks, mild. “I’m not your dad. Mom’ll have to deal with that. I’ll just high five you.”

“We’ll shun him at school,” Jasper vows, and Monty is quick to agree. “We’re Team Griffin.”

Clarke ducks her head against Bellamy’s chest to hide her smile, but she knows he sees, because he rubs a hand down her shoulder.

“We’re all Team Griffin,” he agrees, and picks up the nearest controller. “Now which game am I kicking your asses at?”

In the end, Octavia does not cut off Finn’s balls, but they weren’t kidding about the shun thing. Apparently it spreads around the school within a few days--not the details, of course, just that Finn Collins did something despicable and isn’t worth talking to. Apparently people are more than pleased to fill in the blanks with their imaginations, and Clarke’s willing to bet more than a few of them are wildly off base, but she can’t bring herself to feel sorry for him.

He’s the one that cheated. He’s in the wrong, here. Clarke keeps reminding herself of that.

She’s also decided that she’s done with romance. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Bellamy snorts when she tells him. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

“I mean it!”

“I believe you.”

“I might take a vow of chastity,” she muses, and he chokes on his sweet tea.

Raven sits down beside her in the school library a week later, and Clarke stares up at her in surprise.

“Don’t worry, I’m not trying to assassinate you,” Raven says, glancing down at her textbook. “I don’t--I’m not mad at you, or anything. I could tell you didn’t know about me.”

“No,” Clarke agrees, quiet. Just because she didn’t hurt Raven on purpose doesn’t mean that Raven still wasn’t hurt. “I didn’t.”

She nods, curt. “So, I like you, and I’m still the new kid, so I still want to be friends with you. If that’s on the table.” She looks directly at Clarke, like a challenge.

“I still want to be friends with you too.”

“Cool,” Raven says, and just like that, they’re fine.

She slides effortlessly into Clarke’s social group, in a way that Finn never quite did, and Clarke doesn’t even panic that she might replace her. She’s finally starting to feel sure of her place in their lives.

“I’m starting to think I might not be replaceable,” she says. She’s on the porch with Bellamy, in their respective rocking chairs, eating his homemade chex mix, because they got tired of the faulty chocolate chip-to-pretzel ratio in the storebought kind, out of a giant salad bowl between them. Inside, Octavia, Monty, Jasper and Raven have passed out in various positions throughout the house. They’ve both given up on herding them into actual beds.

Bellamy frowns. “Why did you ever think you’re replaceable?”

She shrugs, rocking gently so that her chair doesn’t creak too loud. “I don’t know. I guess I just never really knew why anyone might keep me around. I mean, there has to be someone better out there, right?”

“No,” he says, immediately, and Clarke looks at him. For once, Bellamy’s looking back at her, letting a cigarette smolder, loose in his hand. “We keep you around because of who you are. You’re Clarke,” he says, like it’s that simple. And maybe it is.

“Well I keep you around because you can drive me places,” she tells him, and he snorts.

“Good move.”

 

Clarke and Bellamy are watching his old copies of Yugioh downstairs when Octavia wanders in, looking ready for war.

“Get dressed, bitches,” she barks, and they both turn to look at her, equally unimpressed.

They’re both still in pajamas, eating cookie dough out of the mixing bowl because they hadn’t felt like waiting for it to bake. It’s nearly the end of summer vacation, just a few months after Bellamy’s graduation. He’d gotten a job at the nearest gas station directly afterwards, and spent most of his days working.

“Why?” Clarke asks, frowning around her spoon. She’d been looking forward to doing nothing all day. Soon she’ll be starting high school, and while she’s excited about it, she still wants to milk what’s left of her time off.

“Tonight’s the second annual End of Summer Slash Octavia Blake’s Birthday Party Extravaganza,” Octavia says, like she can’t believe they forgot.

“Does it count as annual if it’s only happened once?” Bellamy asks, mouth quirking up at the corners. Their mother is visiting family in Atlanta for the week, and since Bellamy had to work, she’d left them behind.

Clarke is starting to realize that the fact that even though she practically lives at the Blake house, she often goes days without seeing Aurora Blake, might be a bad sign. It seems like Bellamy has always been the one taking care of Octavia, and Clarke by proxy, even when they were little. Clarke can remember Bellamy cooking them dinner her very first night at their house, when he can’t have been more than eleven. It makes her ache a little, for both of them, but mostly Bellamy. At least Octavia didn’t have to worry about taking care of another kid, while she still was one.

“I’m not ordering a keg for you,” Bellamy tells her, but Octavia just takes that as assent, and starts getting the house ready.

They buy streamers this time, and she and Clarke spend the whole afternoon draping them everywhere, until Bellamy starts grumbling about how he feels like he lives in a spiderweb. A brightly colored, festive spiderweb.

Bellamy pulls the grill that they never use out of the shed, and starts making burgers as the first of the guests arrive.

There’s the usual crew--Monty and Jasper, Harper and Monroe, Wells and Raven, Atom and Sterling. Miller is still in town, not leaving for university for another week, and Murphy, whom Clarke isn’t sure will _ever_ leave. Roma swings by, and she and Clarke chat for a bit about when exactly Clarke should start prepping for the SAT, and if she should join the yearbook team or not. Clarke knows that she used to hook up with Bellamy fairly regularly, because Octavia complained about it a lot, but they don’t seem awkward around each other at all, which is--nice. Clarke aspires to be at that level. She still doesn’t really know how to even look at Finn.

Bellamy’s a lot less strict about controlling the alcohol, now that everyone is technically a teenager. She doesn’t know when he started drinking, but it must have been young.

Someone sets up a loudspeaker and starts playing heavy bass music that vibrates the earth and burrows its way into Clarke’s bones. She lets Octavia drag her out into the middle of the yard, dancing wildly, drunk and inept and happy, bringing others into the fray with them until they get a fairly big crowd going. She sees Bellamy standing off to the side with a beer in one hand, and grins sloppily at him.

Clarke mimes pulling him towards her with a rope, and he doubles over, spilling his drink as he laughs. But she isn’t done yet, and so she shimmies over and tugs on his hand, pulling him onto the makeshift dance floor.

They dance like little kids, all thrashing limbs and jumping and hair getting in their mouths. If Clarke was a little more drunk, or maybe just more brave, she’d wrap her hands around his neck and try to slow things down between them, pressing in close.

But she isn’t, and so she settles for laughing and jumping with him until she’s sweaty and gross and panting, and her head is spinning so she goes to sit down.

“You okay?” he asks, following her to the patch of grass she’s claimed, sprawling out under the sky like a starfish.

“Mm,” she hums, a non-answer. Her whole body feels soft and light, and fuzzy at the edges. Bellamy smiles down at her, looking fond.

“How much have you had to drink?”

She makes a face, trying to remember. Emori, Murphy’s girlfriend, brought a cooler filled with little aluminum pouches that looked like capri suns, but definitely _weren’t_ capri suns. They tasted like grapefruit and they made Clarke’s head funny. “Enough,” she decides, and he laughs.

“It’s good to know your limit. I’ll go get you some water.”

He walks back to the house and Clarke lets her mind wander. Her eyes are closed when she feels someone settle down beside her, and she grins because she thinks it’s Bellamy. “Where’s my water, mom?”

But then she opens her eyes and sees a girl looking down at her, amused. “Mom?”

Clarke’s mouth suddenly feels very dry. “I thought you were my friend,” she explains, trying to figure out why this girl looks so familiar.

Glass, she remembers. Her name is Glass, and she was in Clarke’s art class last year. They’d made a joke, about starting a club for people with strange names.

She’s also very pretty.

“I’m sort of drunk,” Glass says, whispering like it’s a secret. But she’s smiling too, and it’s infectious. She has a nice smile, and dimples, and Clarke finds herself grinning back.

“Me too,” she admits, and Glass giggles.

“I just wanted to,” Glass cuts herself off with a hum, and leans in slowly while Clarke sucks in a breath and holds it, holding still.

Glass kisses her softly, barely at all, before pulling back like she’s searching for something in her face.

Evidently she finds it because then she smiles, a bright flash of one, and leans in again. This time, Clarke tilts her head, kissing back. She and Finn hadn’t done much in the short time that they were together, but they did do _this_ , enough for Clarke to get pretty good at it.

They pull apart again eventually, and Clarke flops onto her back with a laugh bubbling up out of her chest.

Glass lays down beside her, grinning up at the sky in a drunken daze, and when Clarke turns to look at her, she finds she’s already asleep.

Clarke drowses a little, sleep like a thin veil she can still see through, until her head isn’t so fluttery, and she can stand without tipping over.

She finds Bellamy back on that floral couch. They’d moved it into the screened room for the winter, and then back out again once the days grew long and warm. It was becoming another tradition, apparently.

And so was this; him smoking on the sofa, her head on his shoulder, voices low in the early morning while everyone else was asleep and the world felt like it belonged to them, just for the moment.

“Someone had fun,” he teases, flicking at a spot on her neck. Clarke reaches up to feel the tender skin; Glass must have given her a hickey while they were getting carried away.

She flushes, but he’s looking back at the sunrise. “I always have fun,” she reminds him, and he groans.

“Yeah, I remember.”

“This is my favorite part, though,” Clarke says, curling up a little more against him so he’ll put his arm around her for warmth. She’s still kind of drunk, so she’s not sure if she’s making sense, but she trusts that he’ll get it. Bellamy always seems to understand what she means. “Just--us. It’s my favorite.”

Bellamy stubs out his cigarette and leans back against her. “Mine too.”

 

Apparently Glass likes Clarke, and she really likes kissing Clarke, but only under the safety sheet of alcohol and rowdy parties. She’s nice enough in class, and outside of school, but a little more distant. She doesn’t let Clarke touch her, or hold her hand, or brush her hair behind one ear.

“I think she’s just worried about what everyone will say, if we come out,” Clarke says, not for the first time.

“So then tell her that you want to come out,” Raven says, ever pragmatic, even as she sketches a design for some world dominating robot named Maude.

Clarke sighs. “It’s not that _easy_.” They’re in seminar, which basically means Clarke is lying with her head on her desk and pretending to study, while Raven doodles anthropomorphic androids on every available surface. They’re being very productive, obviously.

“I don’t want to pressure her or anything,” Clarke explains, also for not the first time. Honestly, Raven is showing a remarkable amount of patience.

“I get that, but at the end of the day your happiness matters too. Keeping this quiet is making you miserable. If she cares about you, she’ll want to change that. So either talk to her about it, or break things off so you can be with someone who wants to _be_ with you.”

Clarke opens her eyes to glare at her, accusingly. “Since when are you a romance guru?”

“Since you started using me as your personal _Dear Abby_ ,” Raven shoots back. “I read a self help book for you.”

“You like reading everything,” Clarke points out, because it’s true. She’s seen Raven read a knitting catalogue before, even though she has absolutely no interest at all in learning to knit. She just wanted something to do, and the catalogue was in front of her.

“Lucky for you.”

Clarke does break things off with Glass a few weeks later. She’s at a party hosted by a classmate from Ark Academy for once; their parents are out of town apparently, and it’s at a _mansion_ in the nicest part of town, with a swimming pool lit up electric blue. She and Glass claim a secluded corner of the pool, all eager kisses and hands slipping over each other, until Clarke realizes with a jolt that this was all they will ever be.

Just quick make out sessions at pool parties, and while she _likes_ kissing, and touching, Clarke wants everything else too. She wants to hold hands, and be silly about each other, and introduce her as _Glass, my girlfriend_ , and kiss her on the cheek before she leaves for class.

“Are we ever going to go anywhere?” Clarke asks, pulling back so Glass has to look at her.

“We’re somewhere right now,” Glass hedges, even though she knows that isn’t what Clarke means.

But it’s pretty much an answer, isn’t it?

Clarke sighs, nods, and steps back, hoisting herself out of the water. “I can’t do this,” she says, hugging her knees to her chest where she sits on the cool tile. “I can’t be your secret, or experiment, or whatever.”

Glass looks like Clarke just hit her, but she doesn’t try to argue. “I can’t be--open, yet,” she chokes out, and Clarke offers a smile.

“I know, and that’s okay. I just can’t wait anymore. Sorry.” She stands up and walks away without waiting for an answer, and tries to find Raven or Wells, whom she came with, but she doesn’t see them in any of the rooms she checks, and they aren’t out by the pool either.

Clarke plans on just texting them to find out where they are, but when she unlocks her phone, Bellamy’s number is the first one to greet her, and she hits dial without really thinking about it.

It’s possible that she just wants to hear his voice. Clarke knows it’s pathetic.

“What’s up, princess?” he asks, and he doesn’t sound like he just woke up, or like she’s interrupted something, so she takes it as a sign.

“I’m at a house party,” she says, shivering a little in her sundress, soaking through in patches from her still-wet bathing suit. “Can you come get me?”

“Yeah, of course.” She tells him the address, and he makes her stay on the phone with him while he drives, so he can be sure she doesn’t pass out, or go home with any strangers.

Bellamy pulls up in his mom’s station wagon, and Clarke hangs up before sliding into the front seat. He notices the goosebumps on her arms immediately, and shrugs off his sweater without a word, pushing it at her.

“You okay?” His eyes keep flicking between her and the road as he drives. Clarke pulls his sweater on over her dress and breathes it in, tipsy enough that she isn’t self-conscious. It smells like cinnamon and cigarette smoke. Her favorite.

“Yeah.” She chews over her words before she says them. She hasn’t actually told Bellamy about Glass yet. She knows he saw them making out at the last summer party, but she hasn’t mentioned her since and he never brought it up. But now she just wants to tell _someone_ , and Bellamy’s a great listener. “This girl, Glass, from the last party at your house? We’ve been kind of hooking up for a while, but she didn’t want to go public, so I broke it off.”

Bellamy stays quiet for a moment, but she isn’t worried. Finally he says “I, uh, actually went through kind of the same thing my sophomore year. There was this guy, and I really liked him, and he liked me--but only behind closed doors. Finally I gave him an ultimatum; either he agreed to stop treating me like his dirty little secret, or we stopped messing around.” His hands flex on the steering wheel, almost unnoticeable, but Clarke knows him. “Obviously, the sex wasn’t that important to him.” He says the last part dryly, like a joke, but Clarke reaches over and squeezes his hand anyway.

“I’m sorry, Bell.”

He squeezes back. “I’m sorry about you and that girl. It sucks, being treated like something they’re ashamed of.”

“I don’t think she was ashamed of me. I think she just--wasn’t ready.”

Bellamy shrugs. “Still sucks.”

He’s still holding her hand, and makes no sign of letting go soon, so Clarke doesn’t either. “Yeah, well. I hear most adult things suck.”

His laugh is bright and surprised, like he can’t believe she remembers. As if she doesn’t remember practically every conversation they’ve ever had. “At least we have kissing.”

Clarke grins, reaching to turn on the radio, switching it to the Pop 40 station that she knows he hates, just because.

They don’t speak, letting the music fill the space between them, until Clarke sees they’re nearing his neighborhood. He hadn’t even asked if she wanted to go back to her own house; he’d just assumed she was going to his, and that makes her chest feel heavy. “Can we not go home, yet?”

Bellamy eases off the brake, and passes the turn smoothly. “Where do you wanna go?”

“Surprise me,” she says, and he takes her to the 7-Eleven.

She laughs when they pull into the parking lot and he grins, parking the car and stretching before he steps out. They buy a bag of frosted donuts to split, and he even gets her an Icee that turns her tongue bright green, like an alien. They lay on the hood of the car with the donuts, looking up at the sky.

“How’s school?” she asks, feeling guilty for not having asked sooner. She hasn’t seen Bellamy much lately, between high school and socializing, and college and his job. Their schedules just haven’t lined up well.

“Kicking my ass,” he sighs. “I thought community college was supposed to be easy.”

“Maybe you just suck at learning,” Clarke says, and he grins, sardonic. They both know how much he loves learning.

“Yeah, that must be it.”

“I was sort of scared you’d leave for school,” she admits, and it feels like too much, confessing this. How much she still needs him. “I thought you’d go to some big university across the country, and I’d only ever see you on holidays.”

“I’d come back for the summers,” he muses. There’s powdered sugar on the corner of his mouth that she wants to lick off. When he turns to look at her, she feels like she’s been caught in something. “You wouldn’t lose me, Clarke,” he says, quiet and serious. “Even if I did leave town, all you ever have to do is call. I’ll come.”

Clarke swallows everything she wants to say, and instead blurts “Octavia was really scared you’d leave, too.”

He grins at that, rolling over again. “God, she’s such a brat. For _months_ she talked about how she was gonna take over and rearrange my room once I left.”

Clarke has to smile now, too. “She doesn’t want to look weak for caring so much.”

“Dunno what asshole gave her that idea,” he grumbles. “Caring isn’t weak. Caring makes you strong as hell.”

Clarke remembers fifteen year old Bellamy frowning down at her when she told him she was hungry. He said “Dunno why you think I care,” in some ridiculously gruff voice, but of course he _did_ care, and he made her and Octavia lasagna. Bellamy has always cared, but he went through a weird alpha male phase at some point, and was bad at showing it.

“Yeah,” she teases. “It’s a real mystery.”

His mouth turns up at the edges, and she still wants to kiss him, but mostly she wants to wrap her arms around him and just never let go. “Shut up, Clarke.”

 

When Clarke is fifteen, she discovers pot.

Well, more accurately, Monty and Jasper discover pot, and introduce it to the rest of them.

“There’s this guy peddling it out behind the K-Mart,” Jasper says excitedly, as if anything about that sentence isn’t horrifying.

It’s just the four of them, Jasper and Monty, Clarke and Octavia, tucked inside the garden-shed-turned-clubhouse behind Jasper’s house, because Bellamy would actually kill them if he caught them doing drugs.

“How can you tell if it’s laced with anything?” Clarke frowns, squinting at the clump of green.

“I guess we’ll find out if we die,” Octavia says, pragmatic. “Do any of you know how to roll a blunt?”

None of them do, and besides, they aren’t old enough to buy cigarillos anyway. Likewise none of them have the papers to make joints, or the actual glass-blown pipes sold on etsy, so they get on wikihow and find out how to make a pipe out of an apple.

Clarke googles side effects of inhaling marijuana first, just in case, along with what they’re supposed to do if someone is having a bad trip. Just because she’s _fun_ doesn’t mean she’s _stupid_.

“No, you have to stab it,” Clarke dictates, looking at the images on her phone while Monty does his best to carve the apple with a Bic pen. “No--give it to O, she’s a stabber.”

“Damn right,” Octavia chirps, making grabby hands for the fruit.

They get it made eventually, and then Monty’s lighting the bowl and blowing smoke through his nose like a dragon.

“Where’d you learn how to do that?” Octavia demands, and he grins, proud of himself, passing the apple pipe over.

“Youtube.”

“If any of you start to see bees, just remember they aren’t real,” Clarke says sternly, and then hacks on her own inhale while Octavia leans over to thump on her back, helpfully.

In the end, none of them see bees, and they mostly just lay around on the furniture, searching for shapes in the ceiling. It makes Clarke’s head feel fuzzy, like static on a television, but warm, and she forgets how to blink for ten minutes before she realizes that her eyes are just closed.

“I think that went well,” she says in the morning, while Jasper tries to make eggos for everyone, with his grandma’s fritzy toaster. “None of you are feeling any inklings to try meth, right?”

It _is_ called the gateway drug for a reason.

But they all just give simultaneous eyerolls, still foggy from sleep and weed, and Clarke decides it’s a success.

She’s not expecting Jasper and Monty to become weed _aficionados_.

Clarke guesses, in a way, it does kind of make sense. Jasper and Monty like learning how to make stuff, and whatever they make, they want to be the best. So of course, they decide they have to grow the best pot.

“This is a terrible idea,” Clarke tells them, staring at the makeshift grow room, in the back half of Jasper’s shed. They’ve installed some heat lamps, and Monty bought a bunch of different seeds from the shady K-Mart guy--whom Clarke would like to interrogate, just a little, because honestly _who_ sells weed behind a _K-Mart_ \--and now they’re crowdsourcing for ideas on how to breed the best strain.

The fact that they put details of their marijuana manufacturing on the _internet_ is just another in a very long list of bullet points that prove why this is a bad idea.

“Miller’s dad is going to arrest you and you’re going to go to prison,” Clarke grumbles.

“We’re fourteen,” Monty points out. “But yeah, that sounds totally possible.”

“Do you think they’ll let me keep a copy of my mugshot?” Jasper muses. “I can hang it on the wall, like James Dean.”

“If you start cooking meth, I’m disowning you,” she says.

“When we were like, eleven, we binge-watched Full Metal Alchemist and spent the next six months trying to turn lead into gold,” Monty says, and he and Jasper air-five from across the room. “Didn’t work, obviously, but it was still fun.”

“I think Breaking Bad’s on Netflix,” Jasper says. “That’s basically like a meth-cooking tutorial, right?” Clarke throws a roll of toilet paper at his head.

She’s on the couch a few weeks later with her feet in Octavia’s lap while she sketches and Octavia and Harper play some video game involving cat-people and dragons, when Monty stumbles into the Blake house. His eyes are bloodshot, and he’s worn the same hoodie for the last two weeks, she’s pretty sure. He gives them a goofy grin before sliding in beside Clarke.

“You’re becoming a pothead,” she tells him.

“It’s so that I’m not just the nerdy Asian stereotype,” he says loftily.

“But you’re still a nerdy Asian.”

“Yeah, but now I’m the nerdy Asian _pothead_ ,” he points out. “I’m breaking barriers, Clarke.” He takes Octavia’s controller when she leaves to get snacks, and has Harper fill him in on the game, and he ends up dying six times in a row, because he can’t move his thumbs quite right.

Clarke flicks him on the head with her pencil. “If Bellamy catches you with that stuff, he’s gonna stuff you in a bag and throw you in a river.”

“If Bellamy catches who with what stuff,” Bellamy says, suspicious, wandering in mid-yawn with a pair of sweatpants hung low on his hips. He’s been working nights lately, and often stumbles into the living room mid-afternoon, looking tired and disheveled. Clarke moves her feet to make room for him, and then puts them across his lap.

“If you catch Monty with his collection of snuff films, obviously.” She gives him a sunny smile and he makes a face, tickling her feet for his trouble.

 

Clarke gets her driver’s permit after studying the whole week for the test, and then races off to the Blakes, to goad Bellamy into teaching her.

“Don’t you have parents for this?”

It’s an awkward statement, because it just makes them both think about Aurora Blake, and how Bellamy and Octavia _don’t_ have the kind of parents that would spend time, teaching them how to drive. Bellamy learned from the driver’s ed class at the high school, and he’ll probably end up being the one showing Octavia how, in their mom’s station wagon.

“My parents are workaholics,” Clarke says. “Why do you think I’m always over here?”

Bellamy feigns hurt. “You mean it’s not because you find me incredibly attractive and want to be around me all the time?”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “That’s the other reason. Seriously, please? You’re the only person I actually trust to do this.”

That seems to get his attention, because next thing he’s grabbing a jacket and taking off towards Miller’s house.

“The wagon’s a stick,” he explains as they walk. “And I don’t feel like dying today.”

Clarke almost argues, but she’s heard horror stories about stalling out on the highway, so she just nods and follows.

Miller lives in a little brick house with his dad and his dad’s girlfriend. Clarke doesn’t know where his mom is, or what happened to her. She doesn’t actually know much about his life, beyond the fact that his dad is a deputy, and the only reason that Miller never went to Juvie for a shoplifting stunt when he was in high school.

He answers the door in basketball shorts and wool socks but nothing else, already looking annoyed with them. “What.”

“Can we borrow your truck to teach Clarke how to drive?” Bellamy asks and Miller looks between them for a moment. Clarke almost expects him to say no, because he waits so long to answer, but eventually he lets out a sigh and turns back inside the house.

“Let me get some shoes.”

Miller’s truck is a gas-guzzling diesel engine from the 80s, with chipped once-blue-turned-gray paint, and headlights that are permanently foggy. Clarke loves the old thing, even as it gargles under her feet, which can barely reach the pedals.

“Go slow, but not too slow,” Bellamy directs. He’s in the middle of the bench seat, so he can reach the steering wheel if he has to, while Miller sits shotgun with his elbow hanging out of the window dangerously.

Miller snorts. “Good job. You should totally be a professional. Go work for the DMV.”

“I’d rather kill myself,” Bellamy says, completely genuine. “If you think you can do better, be my guest.”

Almost as if on cue, Clarke thinks she sees movement from the corner of her eye--a deer? She’s secretly petrified of deer--and slams the brake so they all lurch forward, and the truck itself seems to scream.

“Don’t do that,” Miller says helpfully.

Bellamy scoffs.

“Do either of you want to actually _teach_ me something, here?” Clarke asks pointedly, gritting her teeth a little. Her fists are starting to hurt, where they’re clenched around the steering wheel, at ten and two _exactly._

Bellamy reaches forward and gently tugs her hands loose, shifting them a little. “Relax,” he says, smoothing a hand down her shoulder for comfort. “Trust your instincts. Now, since Miller’s truck is actually a corpse, it can’t go any faster than fifty-five--”

“This baby can coast up to seventy,” Miller argues. “And I don’t see anyone else letting you use their car. Why don’t you go ask Murphy?”

“The day I get into Murphy’s serial killer van is the day of the second coming,” Bellamy declares. “That thing has been involved in at _least_ fifteen murders, I swear to christ.”

“Probably more,” Miller agrees.

Clarke has never seen Murphy’s serial killer van, but she _has_ seen Murphy, so she believes it.

“As thrilling as this commentary is, I’m not really learning anything.”

“Green means go,” Bellamy says, because he’s an asshole. “Red means stop.”

“Yellow means go faster,” Miller adds. “And if you see red and blue flashing lights, just slam on the gas as hard as you can and gun it.”

“I’m going to crash into a tree,” Clarke tells them, but she’s smiling in spite of herself, and then they start bickering over the radio stations, swatting at each other’s hands.

It’s fun. Clarke doesn’t really know Miller that well, and has never hung out with him that much, but she likes him, and she likes seeing Bellamy around his friends.

They end the lesson around dusk, after Clarke has managed to make a successful three-point turn, and then almost really _did_ crash into a tree because she mixed up the pedals. She isn’t all that confident about her driving skills yet, but she has some time before her sixteenth birthday, to get it right.

And she got to hang out with Bellamy.

He swings an arm around her while they walk back to his house, all lazy camaraderie. “Think you’re ready for Nascar, yet?”

Clarke snorts. “Give me a couple hundred years, maybe.”

Bellamy squeezes her shoulder. “You’ll get there.” He sounds sure about it, like he can’t imagine her _not_ doing well at something, and the thought of it warms Clarke down to her toes.

 

Clarke and Bellamy never _really_ fight beyond petty bickering about things that don’t matter, and she only actually realizes that when they finally do.

It’s about money of course. She walks in to find Bellamy sitting at the coffee table, budgeting for groceries and practically tearing his hair out with the stress, and Clarke says that she didn’t realize people actually do that.

Looking back on it, it was a stupid thing to say, but she’d just woken up, and she wasn’t thinking.

Bellamy sighs, irritable. “That’s because you’re rich, Clarke.”

It isn’t what he says, it’s _how_ he says it. There’s a derision there, which he’s never had before, while talking to Clarke. He sounds bitter, and annoyed with _her_ , like he’s _blaming_ her for her parents’ money.

“It’s not like I can control that,” she snaps, and that’s when the yelling starts.

Clarke leaves in a huff, storming out, and of course she goes straight to Octavia. Octavia is her best friend, and even if Bellamy is her brother, she’s _always_ been on Clarke’s side.

But not this time.

“He’s not wrong, you know,” she says, once Clarke has finished ranting, and is laying face down on her comforter. They hardly ever go to Clarke’s house, something else which she only ever realizes when they actually _do_ . Octavia always gets cagey here, like she can’t handle the smell of lysol, or expensive furniture. “You are _really_ rich and, Clarke, I love you, but you just don’t get it. What it’s like to be poor.”

“I know that,” Clarke picks at the fringe on her pillow, running Bellamy’s words through her head again. Even with the hurtful tone, he really _hadn’t_ said anything that wasn’t true. Clarke _is_ rich. She _does_ get everything she needed, plus extra a lot of the time. She _doesn’t_ have to think about money, and never really has; how much she was spending on lunch that day, or bus fare for when she didn’t feel like riding her bike. If she doesn’t have enough on her card, she just calls her dad, and he deposits whatever she needs.

And, looking back even further, Clarke realizes that the crack has always been there, just a tiny fracture in her relationship with the Blakes, one which they clearly had been trying to ignore. Whenever they go out to eat, Bellamy gets weird about Clarke offering to just pay with her debit card, and she remembers the first time Murphy came over to hang out at their house in the daylight.

He started talking about some of the girls that he’d hooked up with in high school, and made a face when he remembered one in particular. “She turned out to be an Ark Academy girl, and I don’t fuck with those rich bitches, so,” he shrugged a little, no big deal, and took a pull from the can of beer he’d stolen from Bellamy’s stash.

Clarke frowned at him; she was still in her uniform. “Hey,” she said, and he raised his brows at her. She and Murphy weren’t friends. “I go to Ark Academy.”

Murphy blinked, unsurprised. “And you’re a rich bitch,” he smirked. “So consider my point proven.”

Bellamy snatched the can of beer from Murphy’s hand with a scowl. “Shut the fuck up, Murphy.”

“Yeah, and Clarke’s not _really_ an Arker,” Octavia pointed out, from where she was piling snacks up in her arms so that she’d only have to make one trip to the kitchen, like a Leaning Tower of Junk Food. “She’s an honorary slum girl, like us.” She’d flashed Clarke a bright smile, like it was a compliment, and at the time, Clarke took it as one.

She hadn’t realized that while they were defending _her_ , they never had anything nice to say about her school, or her neighborhood. It’s probably hard to be positive about something held above their heads by invisible hands. Clarke wonders if she should have noticed it sooner, and if it makes her a bad friend, the fact that she didn’t. She thinks it probably does.

Now Octavia fidgets a little where she’s sitting at the end of Clarke’s queen-sized mattress, clutching a purple throw pillow to her chest. “I don’t think you do. It’s _hard_ for me to not hate how nice you’ve got it. It’s hard for Bellamy, too, and we don’t, because we love you and we want you to be happy. But--there’s always that thought, you know? That if things were going bad for you, your parents could just bail you out, but me and Bellamy aren’t that lucky.”

It stings, but only because it’s true. Clarke never has to worry, and Bellamy and Octavia will _always_ have to worry, and she hates how unfair it all is.

“I have to apologize, don’t I,” she sighs, and Octavia doesn’t even bother answering, because they both know she does.

Clarke finds Bellamy outside mowing the lawn, which he only does when he’s really angry, because he finds it therapeutic. Clarke isn’t really sure why; she would rather die than spend her free time _mowing_.

She waits until he cuts the motor off. “Bellamy.”

Clarke watches his shoulders tense, bare and slick with sweat, before he turns to look at her. He looks like he’s preparing for a round two to their fight.

“You were right,” she says instead, and his surprise is evident. “I’m sorry.” She wants to offer to help, in any way she can. She wants to offer to pay for the snacks she eats, and the water she uses for her showers. But she knows he’ll just turn it all down, so she doesn’t.

Bellamy grins slowly, spreading across his face, and it’s infectious. This fight didn’t break them; they’re fine. Of course they’re fine.

“Don’t worry princess,” he drawls, walking forward, threatening a hug. Clarke dances away from him--he’s still all sweaty, and she doesn’t want to stain her blouse. “You’re still the best rich girl I know.”

“I’m you favorite rich girl, right?” she asks, breathless from dodging him, but of course he catches her eventually; he has actual athleticism on his side. Clarke screeches as he picks her up from behind, arms wrapped around her stomach in a bear hug, sweaty chest making her shirt stick to her back.

“You’ll always be my favorite,” he says, and laughs when he lets her go and she pulls at her sticky-wet shirt with a scowl.

 

This year’s End of Summer Slash Octavia Blake’s Birthday Party Extravaganza, Clarke doesn’t find herself kissing anyone, which is just fine.

She plays beer pong and Never Have I Ever with her friends, in a circle around the fire pit that Bellamy dug and lined with old bricks. She doesn’t know where Aurora Blake is this time, and she doesn’t care all that much. She’s started to kind of hate Mrs. Blake, especially after watching Bellamy struggle to save money this year, spending everything he has split between his education and his sister, buying the groceries and paying the electricity bill while his mom drifts in and out of their lives.

Bellamy still stands around at the edges, chatting and drinking with the people his own age, while Clarke dances and drinks with hers.

They still manage to find their way to each other in the end, though.

She sits with him on the sofa, his fingers tapping out a beat on his kneecaps because he’s trying to quit smoking, and Clarke wonders if this is just how things will always be.

Bellamy will always be her friend, always ready to support her, always just a little out of her league.

And she will always be in love with him.

“You know the Greeks thought morning dew was the tears of Eos, the goddess of dawn,” he says, breaking the quiet as the sky turns a dusty pink.

“That’s sad,” Clarke accuses, and he laughs.

“Yeah. Aphrodite cursed her to be perpetually in love, because she’d slept with Ares, Aphrodites’ boyfriend.”

 _Perpetually in love_. “That’s a curse?” she asks. “Always being in love with someone?”

“They seemed to think so.”

It sounds about right.

Clarke keeps her head on his shoulder as she watches the sun rise, and feels the dew collecting on the grass beneath her feet, and she thinks she understands the dawn pretty well.

 

Clarke spends her sixteenth birthday at the DMV, nerve-wracked and trying to get her driver’s license. But then it’s the evening, and her parents have already had a birthday breakfast with her, so she could spend the night with her friends.

Bellamy and Octavia have strung up lights, and the old party streamers, and they even laid out a Twister map on the living room floor, moving the furniture to make room for it.

A giant inflatable gorilla with a paper crown taped to its head greets her in the gravel driveway, tied to a rock that someone’s drawn on with a marker to say BIRTHDAY GIRL.

Bellamy’s made her a cake; he’s drawn (badly) a blonde stickfigure with a crown, which she’s sure is meant to be her, and the inside is dyed with food coloring and layered to create a rainbow.

“You made me a gay cake,” she says, inexplicably tearing up, which she blames on the fizzy alcohol that Raven gave her.

“Gayke,” Monty corrects, and she hugs him, and then Octavia, and then Bellamy, pressing her nose to his cheek with a smile.

“You didn’t have to do all of this,” she tells him. They’re on the porch, because she’s tipsy and wanted to see the stars, and Bellamy decided to come with her. Inside, she can hear the others playing whatever drunken form of Twister they’d come up with. Someone probably has at least one boob in their face right now.

“Yeah I did,” Bellamy says, but he looks happy, and when he turns to face her, he smiles. “You only turn sixteen once, right?”

If she kissed him right now, he would taste like cinnamon schnapps and her birthday cake, but she doesn’t. “That’s what they tell me.”

“It’s a big year,” he tells her, and she really is joking when she says “Yeah, I can legally have sex now.”

She doesn’t think about the implications until after the words are out of her mouth. _Oh god._ Bellamy stares at her for a moment before half-coughing, half-laughing out of surprise, and Clarke pretends that she didn’t just forget how to breathe..

“Uh, how’d your driver’s test go, anyway?”

Relieved by the sudden change of subject, she grins and pulls the paper receipt from her pocket, proof that she has a legal driver’s license coming to her in the mail within the next two to five business days. Bellamy gives a low whistle.

“Surprised?” she teases, but he doesn’t take the bait.

“Nah,” he shakes his head. “I never doubted you.”

“Hey, Griffin! Get your nimble ass in here so we can cream these punks!” Raven barks from inside, and Clarke giggles into her empty cup while Bellamy barks out a laugh.

“I’d better go in before she hits someone with a chair,” she decides, but reaches out one last time, petting his arm a little, because her depth perception is off. “Thanks for the party, Bell. Best birthday yet.”

He grins, warm and pleased. “Good luck beating those delinquents.”

Clarke’s smile turns savage. “I don’t need luck.”

Clarke is actually _great_ at Twister, both because she’s secretly way more nimble than people expect her to be, and because she isn’t adverse to a little cheating. Brushing up against someone’s back, accidental groping, whispering stuff to psyche the others out while she’s twisted above or under them. She _does_ win, and Octavia hands her an old Bowling trophy from god knows where, which she pumps into the air after her victory.

She doesn’t remember much after that, but she wakes up tucked into a pile of blankets and sleeping teenagers on the floor the next morning, and finds Bellamy asleep just a few inches away, hair mussed and mouth open, drooling on his arm. Clarke closes her eyes and smiles. She has to get up soon, and get dressed before her dad comes to pick her up, but she can just lay here for a moment, soaking in the warmth.

“Morning,” Bellamy croaks, and Clarke blinks up at him, where he’s rubbing his eyes, and flailing a hand around for his glasses. “You want waffles?”

Clarke bites back a grin and nods, and takes his hand when he offers to help her stand.

“M’waffles?” Jasper mumbles, muzzily from across the room, and then the rest of them are shuffling awake too, at the mention of food.

“You’re all locusts,” Bellamy grumbles, but he’s smiling a little as Clarke follows him into the kitchen.

 

Clarke doesn’t know when things change between her and Octavia, and her and Bellamy. She can’t pinpoint the exact moment that she and Octavia began to drift apart, while she and Bellamy drifted closer together, until suddenly Octavia was no longer her best friend, or even the Blake she was closest to.

It probably has something to do with Atom; he and Octavia are on again and off again for a couple of years before they finally get it right, and then suddenly Octavia is someone’s girlfriend, and Clarke isn’t, and it becomes a difference big enough for them to notice.

She keeps going over to the house after school, as usual, but Octavia is always out on a date, or over at Atom’s, or upstairs on the phone with Atom.

Meanwhile, Bellamy plays Super Smash Brothers with her, and has her quiz him and then helps her study for her finals, and tells her about his shift at work after she tells him about her latest art project. She still spends most of her time there, still sleeps there most weekends, still sits up on the kitchen counter swinging her legs while he cooks at the stove. But suddenly it’s just her and Bellamy, which is both exciting and terrible.

“You should add chocolate chips,” she says, nudging his leg with her big toe, stretching from her perch on the counter to reach him.

“You always say that,” he swats at her foot. “About _everything_. ‘Add chocolate chips to the chicken pot pie, Bellamy!’” He imitates her voice horribly, and she laughs so hard she chokes. “‘Add chocolate chips to the baked ziti, Bellamy!’”

“Chocolate chips are _never_ the wrong choice, Bellamy,” Clarke says seriously, and neither of them notice when Octavia walks in.

“Clarke?” She’s standing in the doorway, looking at them strangely. Bellamy coughs a little, turning back to the omelettes he’s cooking.

Clarke flushes for no reason. She hasn’t done anything _wrong_ . “Hey, O. You want an omelette? Unfortunately, there will be _no_ chocolate chips, because your brother’s a tyrant about food.”

“Chocolate chip omelettes even _sound_ gross,” Bellamy grumbles.

Octavia waits until Bellamy goes upstairs to pee, before she rounds on Clarke.

“What’s going on with you and my brother?”

She only seems vaguely accusatory; mostly she just looks like she’s waiting for an answer.

Clarke blinks at her. “Nothing.” Technically, it’s the truth.

“Okay. What do you _want_ to be going on with you and my brother?”

That one’s a little trickier to answer, and so Clarke doesn’t even try, looking down at her plate instead.

“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t,” Octavia says, and Clarke’s so surprised that she looks up again, finding Octavia stone-faced and serious. “He deserves to get out of this dump of a town,” she goes on. “It’s bad enough that he feels like he has to stick around for me, but--he’ll never leave, if you keep leading him on.”

Clarke gapes at her. She knows that they’d grown a little distant over the past few months, but she didn’t think Octavia would think _this_ lowly of her. “I’m not leading him on.”

“I’ve seen how you guys are,” Octavia says.

“He’s not--I’m--he doesn’t see me like that,” Clarke tells her, and it hurts to even _say_ , but it’s the truth, and she’s always known it. Maybe sometimes, when she was feeling especially naive or hopeful, she might have entertained the thought--the _fantasy_ that he might like her too. But she’s never been foolish enough to _believe_ it. He’s five years older than her. She’s still in high school. To him, she’ll always be his kid sister’s best friend. Maybe even a pseudo-kid sister, herself.

“Just,” Octavia closes her eyes, taking a deep breath before finishing. “Let him go, okay? He deserves so much better than this place. I’m trying to convince him it’s okay to leave. I need you to not get in the way of that.”

“What if he wants to stay?” Clarke asks, because it seems worth pointing out. Not--if she really thought he wanted to go, she would do everything she could to help him leave. But if he doesn’t, it seems pointless to try and _make_ him want it.

Octavia frowns at her. “Let him go,” she repeats, and then goes upstairs to take a shower.

Clarke thinks about what Bellamy told her that night outside the Seven Eleven. _All you have to do is call. I’ll always come_ \--and she thinks Octavia may have a point.

Even though he doesn’t see her as anything more than a kid, he still thinks of her as family, and family to Bellamy is everything. As long as he thinks she needs him to stick around, he will. And while it’s tempting to just tell him he should never leave, she knows that’s not what’s best for him.

Clarke leaves him a note stuck to the fridge with one of the clunky magnet letters that the siblings use to spell out messages to each other, explaining that she rode her bike home because she remembered she had some last minute homework to do.

Octavia is right; it’s time for her to let Bellamy Blake go.

 

Clarke stops going to the Blake house after school. She starts hanging out with Wells and Raven more, at the library or at the Jaha’s, even though the magnitude of their house makes her feel small and homesick for Bellamy and Octavia’s cramped, messy clutter.

She throws herself into her schoolwork, going in early to study in the library, and staying late to visit teachers and see about extra credit. Mr. Nyko, the art studio teacher, is her favorite, and he’s supportive of her work, trying to nudge her towards getting a fine arts degree.

She meets Lexa in her AP history class, something which she only even signed up for because at the time she thought it would give her and Bellamy something to talk about, and he could help her with anything she doesn't understand.

But now she hasn't spoken to Bellamy in two weeks, and she's already flunked two quizzes. She's cramming in the library one morning, when a pretty brunette sits down right beside her, putting herself directly into Clarke's space.

Clarke is sleep-deprived and anxious about that day's quiz, so she snaps “There are plenty of free tables, you know.”

“I know,” the girl says, and Clarke finally looks up at her.

She's strikingly beautiful, like a model, with her long hair pulled back in a net of intricate braids, and thick lines of kohl around her eyes, to make their green even brighter.

Clarke feels herself flush immediately when she remembers what she looks like; unbrushed hair tossed up in a messy bun, and dark bags under her eyes. She’s useless around pretty girls.

“I thought I might help you study,” the girl offers, and Clarke notices that she has a matching textbook, and must be from her class. Her flush darkens, now embarrassed for a totally different reason. Just _how_ obvious is it that she's failing this class?

“I’m Lexa,” the girl says, and then she actually _offers her hand to shake_ , like they aren't two overstressed high school students in the library.

Clarke actually finds it endearing, and when she shakes her hand, she sees a flicker of relief in Lexa's eyes, like she was nervous. She licks her lips, reflexive, and Lexa tracks the movement.

_Oh._

“Thank you,” Clarke grins. “I could honestly use all the help I can get.”

Clarke starts studying with Lexa in the mornings and afternoons and even the weekends when she can. It turns out that she lives just a couple of blocks from Clarke's house, with her dads Titus and Gus. They're both nice enough, if a little reserved, and strict about curfew.

They make Lexa keep her bedroom door open while Clarke is over, which is only a little embarrassing.

“They're just nervous about me leaving home for the first time when I graduate,” Lexa explains.

Clarke _likes_ Lexa. She likes how confident she seems even though she has to take medication for anxiety. She likes that she soaks up languages like a sponge, swearing in French under her breath and whispering pick up lines in Portuguese because she knows no one will understand them. She likes that Lexa only watches pretentious foreign silent films, and that she’s had the same best friend--a pretty girl named Costia--since they were babies, and that they still talk everyday even though Lexa moved to Ark. She likes that Lexa takes everything seriously, because she always wants to do her best.

But most of all Clarke likes that Lexa _likes_ her. She has a way of making Clarke feel like she's the only person who exists. She makes Clarke feel special.

Clarke is sitting on Lexa's bedroom carpet, made of impossible soft shag and unbearably expensive, working on a problem set while Lexa looks up a sad playlist to study to. All of Lexa's playlists are sad, made up of Sufjan Stevens and Deathcab For Cutie songs.

Gus pops his head into the doorway, bushy beard and all. “Girls we're going to the supermarket. Behave yourselves.”

“We’ll do our best,” Lexa says, smiling a little. She gets along better with Gus. Titus frets too much, and smothers her.

Lexa waits until she hears the front door close, and then suddenly she's crowding into Clarke's space again, only this time there isn't a heavy wooden table between them.

She kisses her, tentative, like a question, and Clarke opens her mouth up in answer.

Clarke doesn't know that she's still nervous, that she thinks maybe Lexa is like Glass, and just curious or questioning or figuring it out, until Lexa walks her home and kisses her right there on her front step, for anyone to see.

She's eager to show Lexa off after that, her _girlfriend_ , who’s older and beautiful and cool. She introduces her to Raven and Wells, officially, and Wells likes her well enough, even though Lexa is nervous and awkward around people she doesn't know.

Raven doesn't like her, but Raven is prickly, and Clarke is confident Lexa will win her over.

She introduces her to Monty and Jasper too, which goes over about as well as she could have hoped, considering neither of them set anything on fire, and Lexa seems to find them amusing. A little.

She scowls at the weed when they pull it out, which is fine. So Clarke’s girlfriend doesn’t do drugs; there are worse things, and Clarke even finds it a little impressive.

But Clarke can't help the constant flickering thought of _I wonder what Bell and O would think of her_. She almost calls them up half a dozen times, aching to tell them everything they've missed, and to beg them to come and meet her at that old fashioned soda shop they like so much.

It isn't new, the urge to message them. Every time she sees an ad for some new pointless action flick, she wants to send a link to Octavia. Every time she gets a passing grade in her AP history course, she wants to tell Bellamy so he can bake ginger snaps in celebration. She misses them so _much_ sometimes she feels like they've _died_ and she's in mourning.

Bellamy at least messaged and called her for the first few weeks when she started avoiding him, but eventually he gave up, and she sometimes wonders if he hates her now.

But she can’t ask him, so when Lexa asks her about the picture booth photos she has of the three of them, taped up on her mirror, she says “They were my best friends,” and leaves it at that. Lexa doesn't pry, and that's another thing she likes about her.

Monty texts her on Saturday, as she's getting dressed to go see Lexa.

_Come by Jasper’s we miss u xo_

Clarke taps her phone against one palm. It's been awhile since she's spent time alone with her friends. Lexa has been eating up most of her free time, and she _likes_ spending time with Lexa, but she misses Jasper and Monty too.

She sends Lexa an apology text for cancelling their plans, but Lexa assures her it's fine, and that she’s overdue for a skype date with Costia anyway, and Clarke bikes across town.

The boys _are_ happy to see her, which makes her feel a little guilty at first, but it's quickly eaten up since they spend the whole time complaining that they can't go to the Blakes’ anymore.

“You know you two are still allowed over,” Clarke points out. She hasn't told them about her conversation with Octavia, or why she's avoiding the place, but it isn't hard to pick up on the fact that something happened.

“Yeah but it isn't the _same_ ,” Jasper whines, from where he's draped over the loveseat. They're at his house, which he shares with his grandma, who has very eclectic and old-fashioned taste in large furniture. “No one's ever there anymore, except Bellamy, and he's always in a bad mood.”

“Not always,” Clarke says, still defensive in spite of herself.

Monty pauses the game that he is thoroughly beating her in. “Actually, these days? Yeah, he really is. I don't know what happened between you and him and Octavia, but none of you are happy, so really what's the point?”

Clarke fidgets with the controller in her hand, wishing he'd just press play already and get distracted by the virtual martial arts. “Octavia’s happy,” she hedges, even though truthfully she hasn't seen Octavia since their talk. “She's got Atom.”

“Yeah, but have you seen her lately? She's constantly looking to start a fight, like, more than usual. She isn't fun anymore. She's just--angry.”

Clarke doesn't actually believe them until she walks outside after school to find Atom waiting for her, loitering against a lamp post and looking completely out of place in his torn up jeans and old henley. He looks nervous, and pulls her aside by the arm.

“You have to talk to Octavia,” he tells her, and Clarke's first thought is _She's finally done it. She's killed somebody._

“What? Why?”

Atom looks like his next words are made out of thumbtacks. “I broke up with her.”

“ _What? Why?”_ Clarke demands. Atom scrubs a hand through his hair, making it go wild.

“She's just not the same anymore. She kept picking fights with me, until all we did was argue. She got too hard to be around.”

Clarke wants to tear into him right there on the sidewalk, but Octavia needs her, and that seems like a better use of her time.

“You're a coward,” she tells him, for good measure, and then goes to get her bike.

Even though Clarke hasn't gone to the Blake house in months, she still has the route memorized, so she doesn't even have to think about which turns to take. It's second nature by now.

The door is open, and for a moment she'd been worried it wouldn't be, since so much else has changed. She steps inside to find the place empty and quiet, which is unnerving, but when she creeps upstairs she finds Octavia in a bundle of dark hair and quilts on her bed.

Clarke crawls in beside her on the mattress, like she's done so many times before, and wiggles in close, nose to nose.

“Did Bell call you?” Octavia asks. Her voice is hoarse, like she's been crying.

Clarke shakes her head, scooting closer so that she's practically saran wrapped to Octavia’s side. “Atom found me at school.”

“What a creep,” Octavia grumbles, but the spite is halfhearted at best. “He was right, you know,” she sniffles. “He said I was becoming _too much_ , just plowing through the world, not caring who I hurt.”

“He's a douche nozzle,” Clarke tells her, rubbing up and down her back the way Bellamy always did for them when they were sad, or sick, or cramping.

Octavia huffs a laugh, but it's bitter. “But he was right. I _have_ been angry, and I _have_ hurt people. Monty, and Atom, and Bell, and--you.” She looks at Clarke with green eyes so watery they look like the ocean. “I pushed you away. I'm sorry.”

“You were right too,” Clarke tells her, and now _her_ eyes are starting to water, and her throat is getting thick. “I _was_ holding Bellamy here. I think I was worried that if he left, he'd just forget me.”

“Not possible,” Octavia says. “You're Clarke Griffin. We can't forget you.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

Octavia wraps a pinky around Clarke's, like they used to do when they were little. “I'm never letting you _leave_. You can just move into my closet.”

“Sounds plausible,” Clarke agrees. “Come on, we're gonna make pizza. I’ll even put spinach on it, just for you.” She makes a face as she says it though, and Octavia laughs. She still loves salads and all kinds of vegetables, and Bellamy keeps the fridge stocked with bags of fresh spinach, which O will sometimes snack on _raw_ , like some heathen.

Octavia follows Clarke down to the kitchen, and it may have been months since Clarke's been to the house, but she still remembers it perfectly. The plates are right where they were before, and the silverware, and the tub of parmesan cheese on top of the fridge. There's a lot to be said about a space that you know like the back of your hand, like the blueprints are tattooed on your memory, and for Clarke, that's the Blake house. She loves this house.

Octavia might have a point. Now that Clarke's back, she might never leave again.

“So what have I missed in the land of Clarke?” Octavia asks, scooting up onto the kitchen so she can watch as Clarke works, spreading out some flour for the dough.

Clarke bites her lip, goofy smile threatening to spill over already. “I, um. I have a girlfriend.”

Octavia gapes at her. “Ex _cuse_ me? And you didn't call me to dish immediately? How dare you.”

Clarke ducks a little, because even though the sudden rush of happiness she felt when she stepped back into this part of her life and Octavia accepted her with open arms, the months of separation is still like a raw bruise. “I didn't think you wanted to hear from me.”

Octavia hums, popping a handful of spinach leaves into her mouth. “For future reference, I always want to hear from you. Even if I'm being a butt. And so does Bell,” she adds, looking a little chastened. “I forgot how much you buffer us, honestly. When it's just us for so long, we get on each other's nerves.”

Clarke clears her throat to keep her voice light as she rolls out the pizza crust. “Good to know.”

“So tell me about this _girlfriend_ ,” Octavia grins, and it's not _quite_ how it would be, if they hadn’t fought, and Clarke hadn't left them. But it's nearly there.

They're tossing chunks of bell peppers at each other's mouths when Bellamy walks in. He stares openly at Clarke for a moment and she watches the emotions war across his face like a hurricane, before finally sliding blank.

He gives her a shallow nod. “Princess.”

Clarke's hands are still sticky from the raw dough and she is covered in flour and she's pretty sure there's tomato sauce on her face, but none of that stops her from flinging herself at him, landing against his chest so that he staggers back half a step.

“Hey,” he says, voice muffled by the skin of his neck as he pulls her in tight.

She tells herself she's missed him so much because he's her best friend. She tells herself he feels like home because she's known him since she was a child.

Clarke has been telling herself a lot of things, lately. Coming up with a lot of excuses.

“I'm sorry,” she whispers, just for him, and he squeezes her before letting go.

“Just don't do it again,” he says, just as quiet, and then smirks and tugs at a loose curl of her hair. His fingers come back coated in marinara. “Did you get any sauce on the actual pizza, or did you just use it as shampoo?”

“I'm talented,” Clarke tells him. “So, both.”

He does end up baking ginger snaps for them after dinner, and Clarke's pizza is a little burned around the edges, but they all eat it anyway.

Bellamy waits until the last slice of pizza is eaten and their all licking the grease from their fingers before asking. “So why are we eating O’s pity pizza?”

The girls share a look before blinking back at him. “O’s what?” Clarke asks.

“O’s pity pizza. There’s no way you would put this many vegetables on a pizza unless you were trying to make Octavia feel better--don’t deny it,” he adds, when they each open their mouths. “What happened?”

Clarke raises her brows at Octavia, since it isn’t really her place to tell him, and Octavia lets out a sigh. “I guess you were gonna find out eventually, since you’re the nosiest person ever, but--Atom dumped me.”

Bellamy nods, careful, and says “I’m going to cut off his dick,” the way that someone might say “It’s raining outside.”

“No, Bell, it was my fault really. He was totally in the right, and he even sent Clarke here to check up on me.”

It’s a shocking amount of self-awareness for Octavia, and Bellamy and Clarke share a look of bewilderment.

“O, do you have a fever?” Bellamy asks, slow and serious.

Octavia frowns. “What? No, why?”

“Because,” he pauses for dramatic effect. “You just admitted _you were wrong_.”

“Hell must have frozen over,” Clarke agrees, and Octavia huffs, tossing a throw pillow wildly in their general direction.

“Fuck you guys.”

“Yeah, that’s more like her,” Bellamy says, dry, and Octavia flounces upstairs, to let them know she is _really upset_.

He waits until he hears the shower going, to turn on Clarke. She really should have known that he’d want an explanation. It’s completely reasonable; she’d want one, in his place.

“Did you fight with O?” he asks. “Did you--was it something I did?”

They’re cleaning up, him washing, her drying, just like always, and he seems actually _nervous_ , like he really believes he might have done something to push her away.

Clarke thinks about saying _yes_ . She thinks about saying _yes, you made it impossible for me to not love you, impossible for me to not be fucked up over you, and I didn’t know how to handle it, so I ran._

Instead, she sets the towel and the plate in her hands down, and slides her arms around him. “You remember what you told me the night I broke things off with Glass?”

He rubs a hand up and down her back, and only Bellamy does it, and only he feels like this. Clarke _likes_ Lexa, she does, but what she feels for Bellamy is so much bigger, and it’s different. “I remember saying a lot of things that night,” he admits.

Clarke gives him one last squeeze and steps back so she can see his face. “You told me that no matter what, I wouldn’t lose you. That if I just called, you would come.”

He thumbs at her shoulder, skin warm through the cotton of her shirt. “Yeah.”

“Well that goes both ways. Even if you leave town, or I leave town, or we both do--even if we end up on different sides of the planet, you won’t ever lose me, Bellamy. If you need me, I’ll come too.”

The look on his face feels like a confession, and then all at once it’s gone, replaced by his lips on her hair. “Thanks, Clarke.”

They finish the dishes, chatting. Clarke can’t hear the shower anymore, and she wonders if Octavia is actively giving them privacy, or if she just fell asleep in the tub again.

Now that Clarke has spent a few hours in the house, she can see that it isn’t _completely_ unchanged. The collection of 2012 calendars has been taken off the wall, replaced by a single up-to-date one with local business, that probably showed up in the mail. The picture of Jar Jar Binks that Jasper hung up forever ago as a makeshift dartboard is gone too, though there are still a few discolored pockmarks in the drywall, from the darts themselves. Bellamy’s collection of novelty shot glasses has moved somewhere, no longer on display along the window sill, and cups filled with empty sunflower shells litter most of the surfaces, because apparently Bellamy has replaced cigarettes with sunflower seeds.

But it’s the same in every way that matters, and it still _feels_ the same. Still feels like home.

Clarke tells Bellamy about her classes, and how Raven and Wells are doing, and about Lexa.

He smiles, bright and genuine. “Good for you. Let me know if she turns out to be an asshole.” He ducks his head a little, rinsing out the skin. “I’m, uh, seeing someone too. From school. Gina. We’re taking it slow, but things are going well so far.”

Clarke grins, and she’s surprised to find that she isn’t even a little bit jealous, or sad. She just wants him to be happy. Maybe that’s what moving on really means; being glad that you’re both doing well, even if it isn’t together. “That’s great, Bell.” She hangs the dish towels on the stove again, to dry. “So, any obscure DVD’s in the player right now?”

“We’re working through all the old _X-Files_ ,” Bellamy says, wandering over towards the sofa, and Clarke follows, grabbing her sketchbook before settling in.

Her semester project for art studio is a theme, predictably called “love.” She’s supposed to create images that represent love, for her.

Clarke tells herself that it’s natural for her eyes to land on Bellamy. He’s by far the most interesting thing in the room, and he’s always been aesthetically pleasing, all sharp lines and contrasting tones and soft textures. Bellamy Blake is practically a piece of art, himself.

And she does _love_ Bellamy. It doesn’t have to be any specific type of love.

She sees the chain of his clay heart necklace peeking out from under his shirt collar, and Clarke’s hand begins moving without her even realizing it, until nearly an hour has passed, and a portrait of Bellamy stares back at her. It isn’t even close to finished, but it’s already one of the best pieces she’s ever done, and Clarke feels a little raw just looking at it. She feels exposed, like anyone who glimpses at this picture will know everything she feels for Bellamy Blake.

She closes the sketchbook, and kicks at Bellamy’s leg a little, because his head has tipped back against the couch, and he looks like he’s falling asleep. He’ll have a sore back, if he doesn’t go up to bed.

He yawns at her, obnoxiously loud. “You staying here tonight?”

“I should probably go home,” Clarke muses. “My parents expect me to sleep in my own bed at least a few nights out of the month.”

“Lame.”

Bellamy stands up and stretches, and Clarke pointedly does not check out his abs when his shirt rides up. He shrugs on a hoodie that was lying on the easy chair, and scoops the car keys up. “Come on, I’ll drive you.”

“I can ride my bike,” Clarke offers, but he levels her with a heavy look.

“Clarke, it’s eleven at night. Just get in the station wagon. Your bike can fit in the trunk.”

They load up her bike and bag, and Clarke curls up in the front seat while Bellamy sifts through the radio channels, in search of one they can agree on.

They settle on Delta Blues, and the sound of it seems to match the shadowy town outside Clarke’s window, the dim streetlamps and sky in dark shades of blue and occasional gas station with its neon lights still pulsing.

Bellamy pulls up to the curb outside Clarke’s house. “Is it gonna be another six months before I see you again?” he asks, raising a brow, and Clarke makes a face at him.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back at your place tomorrow, eating all your food and taking up all the space on your furniture.”

He grins as she steps out, collecting her bag and bike from the back. “Night, princess.”

 

Clarke makes sure to spend time with her friends after that, resuming her afternoons at the Blake house. Jasper and Monty start coming back too, celebrating her return, and it’s like it used to be, fun and warm with friendship.

But it also means Clarke has to spend less time with Lexa, and even though Lexa understands, swamped by her own academics and extracurriculars, Clarke still feels guilty about it. She becomes even more eager about introducing Lexa to the Blakes, thinking then she could spend time with each of them equally, because they would all be together. Two (or three, technically) birds with one stone.

But every time she suggests going over, Lexa suddenly has an important essay to write, or a phone interview from the head of the linguistics department at some Ivy League school.

It takes Clarke almost two weeks, to figure out what’s going on.

She collapses down beside Lexa in AP world history. She’s writing something in cursive French, which means it’s a letter to Costia. Apparently when they were both kids still, they both learned French so they could speak without their parents knowing what they were saying.

Clarke watches her pen work for a moment, before she asks “Are you nervous about meeting my friends?”

Lexa goes rigid. “You have made it clear that they are the most important to you,” she says evenly. “Of course I am nervous.”

Clarke smiles, rubbing a hand up and down Lexa’s arm, all soft reassurance. “I think it’s cute,” she promises. “But you don’t have to worry about it. They’re gonna love you.”

She’s been texting Octavia all week about a day when they can meet up, but apparently she’s taking a ceramics class this year that is threatening to kill her.

_the devil is a kiln, clarke. its confirmed_

Clarke bites back a grin, imagining Octavia angrily molding the clay like she wants to hurt the clay, and everyone the clay loves, too. _Have you tried glazing it, first?_

_yes OFC i have tried that im not an idiot griffin!!!! i have made 6 mugs this semester and each 1 of them has cracked inside satans personal oven!!! SIX!!!!!_

Clarke has to admit, that seems excessive. Even for Octavia. She’d be feeling pretty murderous, too.

_Friendly reminder that I have a girlfriend whom you said you want to meet and whom I would like to meet you and your brother_

_ugh i cant believe were friends u txt the word WHOM 2 me!!!! WHOM does that!!!!! but ya sure bring her over. hopefully im not DEAD by then_

They decide to meet at the Blake house, after school and before Bellamy’s night shift. Octavia agrees to goad her brother into cooking for them.

“He makes the _best_ bread,” Clarke says, giddy with it. She really wants them to get along. “You’ll love it.”

Lexa hums agreeably, and holds Clarke’s hand through the lesson.

Lexa has an actual car, a birthday present from her dads the year before, silver and sleek and fast like a bullet. Clarke loves riding in Lexa’s car; it still smells new, and she has the expensive radio with all the extra channels, and the seats warm up on their own, and there’s something about just riding shotgun in _her girlfriend’s_ car that makes her feel cool and grown up. Lexa always drives like she’s just committed a bank robbery, and is trying to get to Mexico before sundown.

They pull up to the Blake house, and the station wagon is in the drive which means Bellamy must be home. He’s started driving his mom to and from her odd jobs, whenever she’s actually in town, so that he can use the car for the rest of the day. Clarke knows that he’s saving up for a ride of his own, so that he won’t have to.

“Bell!” she calls, walking through the door without knocking. She can’t remember the last time she knocked before walking into this house, or the last time the door was locked. She’s not sure the lock even works right.

“Kitchen!” he yells back, even though she can obviously see him right over the counter top, where the kitchen bleeds into the entryway. He flashes her a grin, and then gives Lexa a thinner, more reserved smile. “You must be Lexa.”

“And you’re the best friend,” Lexa says.

“More like the best friend’s brother.” Clarke rolls her eyes--god forbid he actually admit they’re _friends_ in their own right--and he looks back at her. “Have you eaten?” He knows she sometimes skips lunch, when she wants to get an extra half hour of studying in, or gets distracted, working on her art in the basement studio. She shakes her head, biting her lip to hide a smile when he huffs at her. “Typical.”

“You’re making dinner _right now_ ,” she points out, but he slides a plate towards her anyway, with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich already made, because he knows what to expect with Clarke.

“It won’t be ready for another two hours, at least. You can’t rush perfection, Clarke,” he adds when she grumbles.

Clarke takes a bite as she looks around; she’s never seen the house so tidy. It’s not _sparkling_ or anything, but it’s clean, and they obviously put some effort into hiding some of the clutter. She’d bet anything that if she opens the door to the hall closet, everything will come tumbling out.

“You _cleaned_ ,” she says, mouth still full with a wad of sandwich. Bellamy flushes and keeps his head down. “I’ve never seen that chair before,” she teases.

“That’s because it’s the catch-it chair,” Bellamy says primly.

“The what?”

“You toss shit there, and it catches it.”

Lexa clears her throat a little, looking awkward in the middle of the room, and Clarke feels a little guilty. Clarke always tends to get caught up with Bellamy, forgetting about everyone else for a while. That’s just how they are with each other.

“You want to play some weird Canadian hockey game that Monty ordered online while he was high?” she offers, knowing it’s still in the gaming system. “It’s all in French, so we can’t understand it, but you can.”

“You speak French?” Bellamy asks, polite, as he starts breading chicken.

“And Russian,” Lexa says, and the conversation lulls.

Clarke gets the game on, but Lexa doesn’t really like video games, and she still seems tense and out of place on the Blake’s old couch.

In the kitchen, Bellamy works on preparing dinner, stopping every few minutes to check the recipe card, like it’s something he’s never made before, and he’s worried about getting it wrong. Clarke can smell spices, and his familiar bread in the oven, making her mouth water.

“Where’s Aurora?” she asks, just to give them something to talk about.

“Hell if I know,” Bellamy shrugs. “She’s been gone a couple weeks now. It’s only a matter of time before she swings back around, eats all the food in the fridge and sleeps for two days before leaving again.”

There was a time when Bellamy would get defensive of his mother, convinced that she was trying her best, even if her best was so much less than other mother’s. But these days he’s mostly just bitter about her, which Clarke can understand. He’s twenty-one, and already playing father to a fifteen year old. Octavia shouldn’t be his responsibility, but she is, and she has been since the day she was born.

“Who is Aurora?” Lexa asks, and Clarke feels guilty again, because she’d forgotten she was there, and could hear them.

“My mom,” Bellamy says, and his words have an edge to them, like he’s waiting for Lexa to say something.

She doesn’t, and Clarke turns back to the game. She still has no idea what’s going on, even with Lexa’s translations, so she’s mostly just pressing random buttons on the controller and hoping.

Octavia blows into the house twenty minutes later, and pumps her hand into the air, clutching something lopsided and ceramic, victoriously. “First solid mug of the semester, bitches!”

“I’m not sure I’d call that a mug,” Bellamy says, dry, and Octavia makes a face at him.

“It has a handle. It holds stuff, like drinks. What else would it be called?”

“God’s Mistake,” he says, and she blows a raspberry at him, setting it down on the counter while Clarke tries not to laugh. It really does look horrible, like a bunch of gray unpainted lumps sewn together. It doesn’t even sit flat. Any liquid it might carry would spill over the side the moment you put it down.

Octavia drops her bag where she’s standing, and turns towards Lexa like a shark. “So you’re the girlfriend.”

Things are easier with Octavia around. Apparently since her breakup with Atom, she’s been throwing herself into her studies, having ignored them to spend time with her boyfriend, and now her grades are sunk. Monty and Jasper are doing their best to help her scrape through. She keeps the conversation flowing, chatting to fill in the empty spaces, asking Lexa about pretty much everything, so that Clarke and Bellamy don’t even have to contribute.

Dinner helps too, because Bellamy _is_ actually a good cook, and the recipe really is a new one that Clarke has never tried before.

“Murphy gave it to me,” he says, when she asks about it.

“Murphy _cooks_?” She’d sort of just assumed that he lived on cheap, foreign alcohol and spite.

“Yeah, he’s pretty good in the kitchen,” Bellamy says, grinning at her face. “I know.”

“It’s just--it’s _Murphy_.”

He laughs. “I know.”

She has two helpings, which he teases her about, and Lexa compliments the meal too. Bellamy clears his throat, not good at taking compliments, and thanks her. Octavia offers to walk the girls to the door, because she doesn’t want to wash the dishes.

Lexa’s quiet on the drive home, and Clarke doesn’t think it went _poorly_ , but Lexa never really seemed to relax. She isn’t good with groups, only ever really opening up when it’s one-on-one.

“Your friends are nice,” she says, pulling onto Clarke’s street, and Clarke smiles.

“They’re kind of assholes, but they’re the good kind of assholes.”

Lexa hums for a moment. “Octavia is very entertaining.” She hesitates. “You and Bellamy seem close.”

It isn’t fair, that Clarke immediately feels like she’s been caught doing something wrong. She hasn’t. It’s not like she’s cheating on Lexa. She likes Bellamy, but it’s a childhood crush, and nothing will ever come of it. And she likes Lexa too, just differently. “I’m close to both of them.”

Lexa, for her part, doesn’t seem angry, or even upset. Just observant. “But you’re closer to Bellamy.” It isn’t a question.

“Yes,” Clarke admits, for the first time.

“He cooks well,” Lexa says, and leans over the console to kiss Clarke goodnight. “I will see you in the morning.”

Clarke watches her car disappear in a streak of headlights and then tips her head back with a shiver. Her neighborhood is more well-lit than the Blake’s, so the stars aren’t as clearly visible.

She thinks about Bellamy, telling her the different names and stories, tracing their pictures through the air so she could always see them.

 _You haven’t done anything wrong_ , she reminds herself. It doesn’t make her feel any less guilty.

 

Three things happen very rapidly in the weeks that follow Lexa’s introduction to the Blakes.

First, Monty and Jasper discover moonshine.

It really isn’t all that surprising, given their weed experiment has gone so well for them. They ended up partnering with the guy who sells it behind the K-Mart, Dax Something-Or-Other, and have ended up with a small fortune because all they ever really spend money on is weird obscure video games and food.

So it figures, that they would get bored and move onto a new venture.

“This is a bad idea,” she says from her perch on the sofa, watching as they hook up various copper pipes in the shed, beside their hallucinogenic garden. They’re making a _still_ in Jasper’s grandmother’s garden shed.

“Your disapproval has been noted,” Jasper chirps, handing Monty some sort of wrench. Clarke didn’t think either of them even knew how to use a wrench.

They have a clawfoot bathtub that Jasper somehow managed to wrangle out of his grandma, when she had one of those old-person showers with the benches installed. Clarke and Octavia had come over to help them move it into the shed, but mostly she’d supervised while Octavia, Harper and the boys did the heavy lifting. Octavia’s only interested in hard work if she can show off her muscles, and get some free weed out of the deal.

They’re connecting the pipes to the tub for some reason; Clarke assumes it’s where the moonshine is going to sit and ferment, or whatever it is that moonshine does. Is it like wine, where it has to age for a while? She’ll look it up later.

“Don’t worry, we still aren’t planning on cooking meth,” Jasper tells her, once they’ve finished. The three of them are all sitting upside down with their legs hanging off the top of the couch now, passing a joint back and forth.

“ _Yet_ ,” Monty adds, and Clarke hits him with a pillow while he chokes on a laugh.

The second thing that happens is this: Lexa wins a poetry competition, and it would feel fairly innocuous, except that Lexa doesn’t actually tell Clarke about it.

They’re sitting in Lexa’s room with the music low, Lexa going over flash cards for an upcoming AP physics exam while Clarke works on a sketch for her studio art project. She’s decided to make it a collection of portraits, all the people she loves. She has her parents, Octavia and Bellamy of course, and now she’s drawing Wells with that kind of sarcastic half-smile he does sometimes.

Titus stops by the doorway on his way down the hall and says “Lexa, our reservation is at eight.” He looks surprised to see Clarke there, even though her study dates with Lexa aren’t anything new. Titus usually looks surprised to see her, and a little disappointed, like he doesn’t understand why his daughter hasn’t broken up with her yet.

“He thinks you’re a distraction,” Lexa explained, when Clarke mentioned it. “He thinks I should be more focused on getting ready for college. He also might think you’re a bad influence,” she admitted.

Clarke was shocked at first. “Me? Why?”

Lexa gave her a look she couldn’t read. “Your friends offered me drugs the first time I met them.”

“Yeah, but that was just weed, not like, _drugs_ -drugs,” Clarke scoffed, but Lexa did sort of have a point. Monty and Jasper were almost always high these days, and Octavia threw at least one party every other weekend.

“I think we might be the kids that parents warn about,” Clarke said, flopping down on the couch in Jasper’s shed the next day.

“We definitely are,” Monty said cheerfully, and passed her the pipe.

Now, Titus looks a little pained as he adds “Clarke, you are welcome to join us of course. We’re celebrating Lexa’s victory.”

Clarke tries not to look surprised, though she’s sure her smile must seem just as forced as Titus’. “I’m actually supposed to go home for dinner, but thank you.” She waits until he leaves before she turns to Lexa, surreptitiously staring at a flash card. “What victory?”

“It’s nothing,” Lexa says, waving the card, all calculated nonchalance. “Just a poetry contest. I won first place.”

Clarke grins, wide and bright. “Lexa, that’s _great_! Why didn’t you tell me? Can I read it?”

She’s flushing now, looking pretty and a little bashful. “It’s in French, and not a big deal, really. Titus is just over dramatic.” Lexa calls both of her dads by their first name.

Clarke understands it, at the time. After all, she _doesn’t_ know French, and maybe the poem really wouldn’t make sense in English. She still leans over to kiss her girlfriend, still stupidly proud of her. “Congratulations, anyway.”

She goes home a little while later, and immediately looks up the contest, searching for _french poetry competitions + lexa woods_. It’s remarkably easy to find, and the site has even published the top three poems, with Lexa’s right at the top. It’s simple enough to translate the page into English.

Lexa didn’t mention that it was a _love_ poetry competition, and Clarke bites her lip as she reads the words, thinking _this might be about me_.

It isn’t as beautiful as she knows it must be in the original French, doesn’t flow as well as it should, but she gets the gist of it. A sonnet about a beautiful girl, whom the poet is obviously in love with.

And then she hits the third stanza, and realizes why Lexa didn’t tell her about it, herself.

_Summer lives inside your skin, skin I have always known_

_I want to move inside your laugh and make a home there_

_All of my memories were formed by the shape of you_

_Shades of brown cloud my senses--your eyes, skin, hair_

_You are the earth_

It takes Clarke’s breath away, the force of love behind the words. She can imagine Lexa scrawling them across the margins of her class notes in her spiraling cursive French, the kind she uses when she writes to Costia.

If Clarke had been asked before then, whether she thought Lexa was in love with her, or she was in love with Lexa, she would have said it was too soon, but maybe someday.

She rereads the poem and thinks about that night, after their dinner with Octavia and Bellamy. Lexa had realized so quickly, how Clarke felt for Bellamy, and she never held it against Clarke. At the time Clarke thought it just made her very understanding, but maybe she’d understood it for a different reason.

Lexa and Costia are going to the same university in New York City, after they graduate. She’s excited about it, and Clarke was happy for them. _Is_ happy for them.

She eats dinner with her parents, and listens to her father detail his latest project, and nods sympathetically when her mother complains about a coworker, Mr. Kane, who has been making life miserable at the hospital. She answers all their pleasant, well-meaning questions about school, and indulgent questions about Lexa. They like her girlfriend well enough, even if she is a little stilted around them. Mostly they just support Clarke, and want her to be happy.

But she can’t stop thinking about the poem, and when she hears her parents turn in for the night, she creeps down the stairs and rides her bike out to the Blake house.

Clarke probably shouldn’t be seeking comfort about her relationship issues from the boy she’s half in love with, but Bellamy is still her best friend, and that’s what Clarke needs.

“I need a drink,” she announces, walking into the living room. It’s his night off, which she knows because he keeps a copy of his schedule up on the calendar, for emergencies.

Bellamy snorts from where he’s watching _Stargate_ on the couch in his pajamas. “How about you settle for hot chocolate?” He might _know_ that she and his sister drink, but that doesn’t mean he _facilitates_ it, especially not since he’s legal now.

Clarke clears a space on the kitchen counter so she can sit and tell him about the poem while he makes hot chocolate from scratch on the stove.

He waits until she’s finished before taking a healthy sip from his own mug, and says “She’s a dick.”

They’ve migrated back to the couch, facing each other with their legs in a knot.

“I don’t think she _knows_ to be honest,” Clarke says, because it’s not like she can really be angry with Lexa. She’s in love with her best friend, too. If anything, it’s actually kind of a relief, to know that Clarke isn’t the only one making things complicated--but she still feels a little upset, like she might not be _enough_ , somehow. “I don’t think she’s dating me just because she can’t be dating Costia. I don’t think she’s realized she _wants_ to date Costia.”

Bellamy takes another sip with a shrug. “I still get to call her a dick. I’m your friend; it’s like my job.” He grins and she matches it. “So what are you gonna do?”

And that’s the real reason why she came to Bellamy. “I don’t know,” Clarke admits. Confronting Lexa feels sort of hypocritical, but not talking about it at all feels dishonest. Mostly she just wants to go up to her in class tomorrow and say _So you wrote a romantic sonnet about your best friend, what’s up with that?_ But she doesn’t think Lexa will appreciate casualness, in this situation. “What would you do?”

Bellamy wets his lips, considering. “I think I’d want someone to tell me,” he decides. “If they realized I was in love with someone else, before I did. I’d want to know. And--they’d deserve better, than a boyfriend who wishes they were someone else’s boyfriend. Or girlfriend,” he adds.

Clarke nods. There really wasn’t any way that she wasn’t going to talk to Lexa about this, but it helps, talking to Bellamy about it. He always helps.

As if he can hear what she’s thinking, he asks “Is there anything else I can do?”

“Just,” Clarke huffs a little, embarrassed. She’s really too old for this, but she just found out her girlfriend is in love with someone that isn’t her, and she could really use some physical affection. “A hug, maybe?”

He sets down his mug like he’s been waiting all night for her to ask. Clarke sets hers down too and then he’s holding her, arms pressing her in tight and legs all tangled up so she’s almost in his lap but not quite, drinking each other in. Bellamy always gives the best hugs, warm and solid, so that he feels like he’s the only thing holding her up.

It lasts until she pulls away, and finds him smiling down at her over his glasses, squeezing her shoulder just once. “In the mood for weird alien sex?”

Clarke laughs, reclaiming her hot chocolate and settling back into the couch, close enough for him to put an arm around her. “I’m _always_ in the mood for weird alien sex, Bellamy.”

Clarke does bring it up to Lexa the next day, when they meet up in the library.

Lexa doesn’t take it well.

“It’s just fiction,” she says, dismissive, though her eyes go hard. “It’s not as if I’m _painting_ her romantically in my spare time.”

Clarke winces. “That isn’t--I’m not _mad_ about it,” she says, pinching the bridge of her nose to fight back a budding headache. She was hoping this wouldn’t become a confrontation, but it’s quickly turning into a fight. “I just wanted--”

“You wanted to prove that you aren’t the only one in this relationship who’s hung up on someone else?” Lexa interrupts. She doesn’t sound sarcastic, or mean, even. She just sounds annoyed, and maybe even a little hurt. She’d thought Clarke was getting over Bellamy.

Clarke did, too.

But even if she hadn’t gone over to his house last night, and reminded herself of how much _better_ he made things, of how warm and safe and happy he made her feel just by being him, reading Lexa’s sonnet would have convinced her that she wasn’t moving on. Not even a little bit.

“I’m sorry,” she offers, but the damage is done and Lexa is collecting her books together.

“It’s fine.” She pecks Clarke on the cheek, and leaves for class.

Things are tense between them after that, and awkward, and Clarke is grateful for the two-week relief that spring break gives her. It’s good to get away from school, and Lexa, for a while, and Clarke plans to spend almost all of it at the Blake’s.

That’s when the third thing happens: Aurora Blake comes home.

Normally, it wouldn’t mean much. She would blow back into town, spend a few days recuperating from her recent life choices, and then disappear for another three or four months, periodically calling for Bellamy to wire her money or, even more sparingly, send some herself.

But this time is different. She shows up with some bags of groceries, for a start, and then two days later Bellamy finds her circling local job ads in the periodicals.

“Like she’s actually gonna be here long enough to hold a job,” he scoffs, telling Clarke about it later, when she visits him during his shift. They go outside to sit on the hood of the station wagon and drink soda and talk about their days, sometimes.

It’s secretly her favorite part; lying with their backs against the cold metal, his skin warm where it presses up against hers, voices loose in the night air between them, mouths slick from sugar.

But right now he’s upset, and she’s here to comfort him, and let him know he’s not alone.

Clarke hums, sympathetic, and lets him lay his head on her shoulder with a sigh. He doesn’t know how to be around his mom, anymore, doesn’t know how to share space with her anymore without getting tense and angry, and Clarke gets it. Aurora was never really a mother to him, not since Octavia was born, and he can’t just let go of that, or pretend to be happy she’s back.

Clarke is on his side, giving Aurora the cold shoulder whenever she’s over.

Octavia, though, is ecstatic. She wasn’t old enough when Aurora first started to pull away, and Bellamy always shielded her from the worst of it. She’s just happy to have her mom back.

It isn’t long before things boil over, and they finally snap.

Clarke is perched on the catch-all chair, emptied for once of book bags and leather jackets and overdue library books, painting her toenails a sky blue that she’s stolen from Octavia’s extensive collection of polish. She’s stayed over the last three nights, and is intending to keep staying over either until her parents pester her about coming home, or until one of the Blakes tell her to go.

Aurora is in the kitchen, trying her hand at making breakfast, though it doesn’t seem to be going well. Clarke doesn’t even feel bad for being smug about it. Bellamy always makes the best breakfasts.

Almost on cue, he shuffles in, still half-dressed and half-asleep. He gives Clarke a sleepy smile, running a hand through his wild hair, and doesn’t actually notice his mother until he’s standing in the kitchen.

“How many eggs is it for pancakes, again?” she asks him, and he sneers back at her.

“You should probably just let me do it, before you burn the house down.”

Octavia slips in from the back room, hands on her hips and eyes on fire. “Why can’t you ever just _back off_?” she demands, glaring up at her brother.

“Octavia,” he grits his teeth, but she cuts him off.

“No, I mean it. She’s trying her goddamned _best_ , Bellamy--”

“Octavia,” Aurora cuts in, but she’s only looking at Bellamy. “This is a conversation between me and your brother.”

Bellamy scowls at her. “She can talk if she wants to.”

For a moment, none of them speak, just watching each other and breathing tensely. Clarke stays still and quiet in the chair, feeling small and out of place. She’s not sure any of them realize she’s still there.

Finally, Aurora breaks the silence.

“Bellamy, I know you’re uncomfortable with me being here,” she starts, and he scoffs.

“That’s an understatement.”

Octavia growls at him to shut up.

“But this is still my house,” Aurora continues, ignoring his interruption.

Bellamy looks shocked. “Since _when_? When was the last time you even paid a bill for this place?”

Aurora levels him with a heavy look, and Clarke squeezes the nail polish bottle so tightly that for a second, she thinks it might break. “It’s my name on the title,” she points out, and the muscle in Bellamy’s jaw ticks. “And I think it’s time for you to leave. I’m back now, and you’re old enough. It’s time for you to go out on your own.”

Even Octavia seems stunned, and the air inside the kitchen feels like a wall of glass. Clarke can practically _see_ the spider webbed fractures spreading across the surface, before the whole thing shatters.

“You can’t just kick him _out_ ,” Octavia blurts. Bellamy puts a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down, but she shrugs him off.

“Leave it, O,” Bellamy says, and then turns back to their mom. “If I leave, you’re on your own,” he tells her, harsh and unforgiving. “No more paying the bills when you lose your job, no more looking after Octavia while you sleep or get high, no more scrubbing your vomit off the bathroom floor. If I go, I’m not coming back.”

She says nothing, and so he just nods stiffly, and storms off up the stairs.

He comes back down two minutes later, fully dressed with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. “I’ll come back for the rest of my shit later,” he says, flashing his sister an apologetic smile, and then letting the screen door slam shut behind him.

In the kitchen, the smoke alarm goes off, and Aurora tosses the smoking pan in the sink to cool off.

Miller drives in from the city to pick Bellamy up that afternoon. He has an apartment with an extra room, and Bellamy texts Octavia, asking her to pack up his room so he and Miller can pile everything in his truck.

Clarke helps, poking through a lifetime’s worth of stuff, old t-shirts and worn-out books and movie posters that he taped up to the wall years ago.

“You’re really okay with this?” she asks, stuffing his pillows and bed sheets into a plastic bag.

“I’m not _okay_ with any of this,” Octavia snaps, filling another box up with paperbacks. “But she’s right, it’s her name on the title, and--” she hesitates, biting at her lip, like she’s embarrassed of what she’s thinking. “If this is his ticket out, I should let him take it, right?”

Clarke doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t want Bellamy to leave, but it’s not like she can go downstairs and take Aurora by the shoulders and _shake_ her, force her to let him stay.

And Octavia is right; Bellamy deserves to get out of the tiny town that’s never treated him right. He deserves so much better.

He and Bellamy come by after Aurora has left for a job interview at the nearby grocery store. They make half a dozen trips up and down the stairs, carrying boxes and plastic bags and cheap stick furniture, piling it all into the bed of Miller’s old truck.

Bellamy pulls Octavia into a bear hug once they’ve finished, and she clings back, mumbling something into his shoulder. He sets her down with a smile that’s more tense exhaustion than anything, and then he turns to Clarke.

She doesn’t feel like she’s allowed to be sad about this, not when Octavia isn’t even crying, and not when she wants to be supportive, and let him know that he’s allowed to leave and live his own life without them.

But then he pulls her in and she can’t help sniffling a little, pressing her face against the skin of his neck and breathing in. He smells like cinnamon, like the cheap boy shampoo sold at drug stores, and he hugs her so tightly that she lifts off the ground.

“All you have to do is call,” he murmurs, and she nods, pressing her lips together before anything can spill out, like some over dramatic confession of how much he means to her as a person.

She pulls back with a weak smile. “You too.”

He grins, only half-sad, and hops into Miller’s truck with one last wave out the window before the girls lose them to the dust of the road.

Clarke wraps her arms around Octavia, who’s stone-faced and angry, watching the dust settle.

“He’ll be okay,” Clarke tells her.

Octavia lets out a breath, and kicks at the loose gravel with her foot. She isn’t wearing any shoes. “Of course he will,” she agrees, and they walk back inside, arm-in-arm.

 

Things are different, after Bellamy moves to the city.

He still calls when he can, still texts Clarke almost everyday, still checks up on his sister all the time, but it feels like Clarke’s whole life has shifted around the absence of him.

She can’t bring herself to go to the Blake house anymore. It just isn’t the same without Bellamy, and she finds herself clenching her jaw until her teeth ache, whenever Aurora is there, washing dishes wrong so that she wastes too much water, and filling the fridge with her shitty racecar beer, and acting like she isn’t the worst mother ever, just generally. Even Octavia stops spending so much time at home, choosing to go to Jasper’s shed instead, or Monty’s, or even Clarke’s, as much as she hates Clarke’s neighborhood, which she’s renamed “the Stepford of Ark.”

“It’s just hard to be around her, without Bell,” she explains, making a face from where she’s dangling upside down on the edge of Clarke’s enormous bed, letting all the blood rush to her head while Clarke works on her calculus homework. “She keeps trying to _mom_ me, and I know she technically _is_ my mom, but it’s just weird now, you know? She tried to give me a curfew.”

Clarke snorts. “I assume that didn’t go over well.”

“I just didn’t come home that night, then the next morning she tried to say I was grounded and I was like _sure, whatever_ , and stayed out that night too. I think she decided to give up after that.”

Clarke doesn’t bring up the fact that Octavia never had a problem listening to Bellamy when he told her to be home by a certain time. She’s probably already thinking about it.

Octavia starts hooking up with a new guy too, a junior named Ilian, who lives on the outskirts of town, and has a pet sheep.

“A _sheep_?” Clarke asks, sure she’s misheard.

“Yeah,” Octavia shrugs, sounding a little endeared by it. “His parents breed them, I guess, but he has one that he picked out as a kid and it’s, like, _his_ personal sheep. Like a dog, except, you know. A sheep.”

“That’s what you have to say about him? He’s seventeen, hot, and he has a sheep?” After everything with Atom, Clarke can’t say she’s impressed. But Octavia tends to rush head-first into everything. She’s always been all or nothing.

“I think you’re underestimating how hot he is,” Octavia argues. “He has long hair, but _good_ long hair, you know? Plus, his sheep is _really_ cute. It’s named Sir Lambselot, and it comes when you whistle.”

She has a video on her phone, from when she spent the night with him earlier that week, and Clarke has to admit, the sheep _is_ pretty cute.

“Does Bellamy know?”

Octavia rolls her eyes, because it’s a pretty dumb question. If Bellamy knew, Clarke would have heard about it. He talks to her more these days than he did when they lived in the same zip code, even though almost all of their conversations are now text-based.

“What Bellamy doesn’t know can’t hurt him,” Octavia shrugs, and Clarke knows that’s a terrible philosophy, but she lets it go. She isn’t Octavia’s keeper; she can’t _make_ her tell her brother every time she likes a new guy.

Raven’s dating someone too, a guy named Wick from her robotics club, and Clarke likes him well enough, even if he seems a little clingy. He’s always walking her to and from classes, trying to carry her books for her, and just generally orbiting her like a satellite.

She collapses into the chair beside Clarke with a huff, stretching out her bad leg. She ran cross country last year and ended up with shin splints, and she’s wearing her soft brace today which means she must be feeling particularly achy.

They’re in the studio art room in the basement, with Raven watching while Clarke works on her project, and periodically grabs some of the malleable clay Mr. Nyko has sitting in a giant oil drum by his desk, and tries to make something worth firing in the kiln. She’s never happy with her creations, and always ends up tossing the clay back into the drum to be molded by someone else later.

Sometimes Clarke follows Raven to the robotics room, in the easternmost wing of the school, but the club is made up of a lot of upperclassmen with NASA-level ambitions, and underclassmen who mostly just want to blow stuff up. She thinks Monty and Jasper would fit right in, but Clarke finds the room too loud and distracting for her to work on homework or art, and she doesn’t actually understand enough about robotics to join in.

So they end up in the art room more often than not, because anyone can get art. Art is easy.

“Where’s Wick?” Clarke asks. Sometimes (usually) Wick will follow Raven down too, and make another one in his series of truly awful clay people, with limbs sticking out of their head, and hands instead of noses. And Clarke doesn’t really _mind_ when Wick joins, she likes Wick, but she can’t say she’s upset that it’s just her and Raven today. She’s missed Raven.

“Why would I know?” Raven snaps. “I’m not his babysitter, and he sure as hell isn’t mine.”

Clarke sets her charcoal down and turns to face her. “Okay, explain. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Raven grumbles, kneading the clay like bread dough, rough and unthinking.

Clarke pokes her in the ribs, and Raven glares.

“I told him I needed some _girl time_ ,” Raven sighs, using air quotes.

“I have never heard you use the phrase _girl time_ in your entire life.”

Raven makes a face. “That should tell you how desperate I was.” She heaves a sigh, tipping herself back in her chair, ignoring when Mr. Nyko gives her a look over it. “I don’t know, I guess he’s just--overbearing? He constantly asks if I’ve eaten, how much I’ve eaten, _what_ I’ve eaten, how many hours of sleep I’m getting, if my leg hurts at all and can he carry me to class--it feels like I have a nanny and not a boyfriend, sometimes.”

“It can be nice, having someone else take care of you sometimes,” Clarke tries, and Raven nods a little.

“I get that, but I don’t _need_ him to take care of me, you know? And he acts like I do. I agreed to go out with him because I thought it would be fun, but sometimes he talks about, like, what we’ll be doing in five years from now. I don’t even know what I’ll be doing five _months_ from now! After Finn, I didn’t want anything serious, but Wick acts like we’re gonna get married, and I don’t even believe in marriage. Like, as a structure.” She lets all the air out of her lungs, like she’s been holding it in for weeks. “It’s just _a lot_.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Clarke asks, leaning in to rest her head on Raven’s shoulder. Raven tips her cheek against Clarke’s hair. She does better with minimal physical affection.

“I dunno. You were busy with Lexa and the whole Blakes thing, and honestly, I thought I should just deal with it myself.”

“There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, Raven,” Clarke says, soft. “Or just venting.”

“I know, but it’s just been me for so long that sometimes I get fucked up about putting my shit on other people, you know?” She shrugs a little, dislodging Clarke’s head. “Jaha helped some. I accidentally word vomited everything to him the other day, and he was pretty good about it. Anyway, enough with my dumb love life, how are things with you and Lexa?”

“Fine,” Clarke hums. She and Lexa haven’t talked about Bellamy or Costia, since their fight before spring break. Neither of them has mentioned the poem, or Clarke’s portraits. They’re mostly back to normal, with study dates and hand-holding in the cafeteria, but there’s this constant _lack_ of everything that they aren’t saying, widening a gorge between them. There’s this sort of dichotomy, between Lexa and the rest of Clarke’s life, and she knows it’s the same for her. Like they don’t want to start integrating too much, or getting too attached. Clarke’s pretty sure they’re both just waiting out the rest of the school year, before amicably breaking things off when Lexa leaves for New York.

And maybe it’s a little fucked up, that Clarke isn’t sad about that, but her life is a little fucked up, these days.

The week before Prom, Clarke has both the PSATs, and her art studio showcase, which means she’s a flurry of study guides and paints and charcoal for almost a month, leading up to them.

She starts texting Bellamy pictures of her art as she works on it, asking for input and maybe some gratification, to keep her going. He never disappoints, even though the closest he ever got to studying art was a single art history class his freshman year at community college, but Clarke always appreciates what he has to say.

It feels like the sort of thing she should go to her girlfriend for, but Lexa is just as busy with her poetry portfolio and getting everything ready for university. She’s still waiting for her acceptance letters, but there’s no doubt that she’ll get into basically every place she applied.

And, honestly, Clarke really just wants to get Bellamy’s opinions.

He can’t get enough time off of school and work to come to her showcase, but the rest of her friends make it, and her parents. Lexa has to leave early, to make it to a cello lesson, but she kisses Clarke chastely on the cheek and tells her congratulations, first. Clarke has her dad take a group photo of them; her in the middle in front of her display, flanked by Octavia and Wells on either side, and Raven, Jasper and Monty too.

Clarke sends the photo to Bellamy, captioned _wish you were here to complete the aesthetic!_

He texts back almost immediately, like he always does when he works nights at the help center. She knows he’s probably bored out of his mind, and feeling guilty. He’s already apologized for not making it, like ten times. _Me too, princess. Your art looks amazing and so do you._

It’s a little too earnest for Bellamy, and Clarke stares at her screen for a moment, unsure how to respond. She may have gotten a little dressed up for the event, styling her hair and letting Octavia do her makeup because she can never get the wings on her eyelids right.

He adds, _Of course, I make everything look even better, so._

She grins, pressing the phone to her chest, like he might be able to hear her heart beating.

 

Clarke is zipping Raven into her dress--a pretty dark green thing, all smooth straight lines down Raven’s body, while Clarke’s is the same blue as her eyes, with a puffy skirt made of tulle--when Lexa messages her.

They’re supposed to meet at the school, because Clarke is Raven’s ride, and Lexa is driving herself, too much of a control freak to hire a limo. She’d just grumble about the driver going too slow, for actually stopping at the yellow lights, and following the speed limits.

But when Clarke checks her phone, expecting to see a selfie of Lexa’s dress and hair all braided up with pearls, instead she sees a text. _I’m sorry._ That’s it.

She frowns, dialing Lexa’s number. She gets her voice mail.

“What’s wrong?” Raven asks, fiddling with her hair. She’s wearing it down for the first time in ages, and she’s self-conscious about it. She’s still wearing the brace and she plucks at it, self conscious about that too.

“I think Lexa’s standing me up,” Clarke admits. She considers calling Lexa’s home telephone, but she’s not sure she’s desperate enough to hear Titus telling her that his daughter decided to dump her on _Prom night_.

“What the fuck,” Raven snaps, forgetting about her hair and brace completely. “That _bitch_.”

“I guess I sort of saw it coming,” Clarke says, giving a humorless smile. “But I didn’t actually think she’d break up with me right before Prom.”

It might be kind of silly, feeling upset about a break-up that Clarke has been ready for, for months. But she’d honestly been so sure that it wouldn’t happen until Lexa’s graduation, and she’d been really looking forward to Prom. Even if she didn’t think that they would last, she at least thought that Lexa _liked_ her, enough to take her to the dance that they’d bought tickets to in advance. They’d even planned their outfits. They were color coordinated, Clarke’s blue with black accents, and Lexa’s black with blue accents.

“It’s fine,” she says, but Raven is typing into her phone, and not listening.

She holds it up to her ear with a scowl. “Yeah, she just fucking _bailed_. No, I don’t know why, who knows why Lexa does anything? Yeah, do it.” Raven hangs up with no warning, sliding her phone back into her pocket--because of course Raven would never buy a dress with no pockets. Clarke is almost certain that she has an actual stick of dynamite stuffed in there, for like, irony or something.

“It’s fine,” Clarke says again, but Raven cuts her off, holding a hand up.

“It’s _not_ fine, and if you start defending her bullshit, I will fuck up your hair.” She waits until Clarke’s mouth snaps shut. “That was Octavia. We’ve got a plan.”

Clarke is a little amused in spite of herself, and feels a rush of affection for her friends. Ark’s Public High School is having their Prom on the same night, which everyone feels is _deeply_ unfair, because they all like the idea of attending two dances for the price of one, but a combination of poor planning and the department of education’s general bureaucracy means that they can’t.

At first, Octavia wanted to protest via picketing, but once it was pointed out that that would mean she couldn’t experience _either_ dance, she scrapped the idea.

“What’s your plan?”

“I’ll tell you when we get to the school,” Raven says breezily. “We’re running late. Chop chop, Griffin.”

Raven broke up with Wick a few weeks ago, and she and Wells agreed to go as friends, which means Clarke really shouldn’t feel bad about third wheeling with them. And she doesn’t; there are far worse things, than going to Prom with two of her best friends. But Clarke can’t help feeling a little disappointed, anyway. It’s her first Prom, and she’d been looking forward to getting the full experience. The fancy dress, the corsage, the slow dancing, the date.

Proms at Ark Academy are different from the affairs she’s seen on TV shows set in public shows. They’re treated more like cotillions than free-for-all’s, and while she knows that Monty and Jasper have probably spiked their punch bowl by now, there is no hope of that happening at Ark Academy. The food and drink tables, covered in pitchers of sparkling lemonade and plates of hors d'oeuvres, are carefully guarded by chaperones that take their jobs seriously.

Raven doesn’t mention the plan again when they reach the school, or when they find Wells waiting for them by the front door, or when they finally get to the dance floor, crafted out of the enormous cafeteria with the theater box ceiling that makes for excellent acoustics.

And, even without a date, or spiked punch, it isn’t long before Clarke finds herself having _fun_. The DJ is nothing special, and the playlist is fairly tame, but it’s nice, dancing with her friends, jumping around in time with the music, shouting out the lyrics that she knows and bopping her head to the ones that she doesn’t. She and Raven spin each other until they’re both dizzy, and then they both spin Wells until he threatens to throw up and ruin their shoes.

It’s enough to distract her, both from Lexa, and from checking her phone every two minutes to see if Bellamy has responded to the bathroom selfie she sent him, of her in her dress, cheeks flushed from dancing.

Clarke is sitting on one of the decorative benches in the hallway catching her breath and trying to cool down enough so her skin isn’t the ugly shade of pink that it blooms when she does anything close to excercise, when someone comes up to her.

“Is this seat taken?”

Her head snaps up so quickly her neck cracks, making her eyes water just a little, but she’s grinning too because it’s Bellamy. He’s here, standing in front of her with his lopsided smile, and he’s wearing a _suit_ , and a _bowtie_.

It looks like he rushed through getting dressed, hair utterly disheveled, and still wearing his glasses--but it’s not like any of that actually matters, because he’s _here_.

“How did you--?”

“Octavia.”

She nods; she should have known, really, the moment that Raven said there was a plan. Of course it would be Bellamy. Somehow every single one of her friends knows that if Clarke Griffin is having an emergency, he’s the one to call.

She’s not sure how they haven’t figured out that she’s in love with him, yet.

He does end up sitting down beside her on the bench, and pulls something out of his pocket. If Clarke didn’t know him as well as she does, she would completely miss the flush spreading up his neck as he hands it to her.

“I didn’t have time to stop by an actual florist shop, but--” he cuts off when she sucks in a breath.

He made her a flower bracelet, out of the little bluebells that grow locally, at the borders of gardens and in cracks in the sidewalks. He used to make them for Clarke and Octavia when they were little, braiding them together with nimble fingers around their skinny wrists. They would cry when the bracelets inevitably fell off, but he would just make them new ones.

“I know it’s not a corsage,” he starts, but she shakes her head, biting her lip as she slips it on. It matches her dress.

“It’s perfect,” she says, smiling at him. He smiles back, relieved.

“Good.”

Clarke lets her eyes drift over him, taking him in. “I didn’t know you even had a suit,” she teases, and he nudges her shoulder with his, all familiar affection, like they haven’t spent the last few months apart.

“I don’t,” he admits. “Miller doesn’t either, so I had to borrow it from Lincoln, our other roommate. And he’s taller than me, so,” he stretches out his legs, so she can see where he’s had to roll the cuffs up, and she _adores_ him.

Inside, she hears a Journey song cut on, and the crowd cheer. Clarke stands up, and offers him a hand. “Dance with me?”

He gives a fake-deep sigh, but slides his hand into hers anyway. “If you insist.”

Raven and Wells whoop when they walk in, and Bellamy laughs when Clarke shimmies over to them, dragging him by the hand. They dance, and they drink some of the nonalcoholic sparkling lemonade, and they eat a few of the hors devours, and they dance some more.

“So this is how rich people do Prom, huh?” Bellamy asks, poking at one of the golden shimmery balloons dangling from the ceiling. “Classy. There’s no dry humping at all.”

Clarke laughs and the music changes, slows down, so they shuffle closer with her hands in a ring around his neck while his hands find her hip bones. She fingers at his hair while he slides his thumbs against her dress, close but not inappropriate. “Is that what public school Prom is like?” she teases. “Just--dry humping, everywhere?”

“Pretty much,” he grins. “There’s a lot more sketchy music, too. The teachers don’t care as much.”

“Spiked punch bowl?”

“Nah, we mostly just bring our own flasks.”

“Economical,” Clarke muses, and he ducks a laugh against her hair. “When do you have to leave?”

He pulls back, looking a little reluctant. “As soon as this is over, basically. I have class in the morning, so I’m just driving straight back.”

Clarke hums, low in her throat. The dance technically ends at midnight, which is in two hours, and she’d wanted the whole experience, but she’s pretty much gotten it. Dancing with her friends, and her _date_ , Bellamy. She lays her head against his shoulder for the rest of the song, swaying back and forth together, and closes her eyes.

The song ends, and she pulls away, taking hold of his hand again. “We’re ditching,” she announces. “It’s okay to leave early if you’re the first ones, right? That makes us cooler.”

Bellamy looks amused. “I don’t think anything could make you cool, but sure.”

“Shut up,” she chirps, and walks over to let Raven know she’s leaving early with Bellamy, before they walk out to Miller’s truck, waiting in the parking lot.

“After party?” Raven guesses, and Clarke pauses. There’s a one hundred percent chance that she and Bellamy are going to drive down to the 7-Eleven, buy some Icee’s, crawl up onto the bed of the truck and talk about absolutely nothing for the next two hours.

“Yeah,” she says, and Raven high fives her.

“Where to?” Bellamy asks, once they’ve climbed onto the bench seat. Clarke slides up right against him, just to see if he tries to pull away, but of course he doesn’t. He just makes room for her.

“Anywhere,” she shrugs. “I just--I miss you. I want to catch up.”

He smiles, fond. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

He drives them straight to the 7-Eleven, like she knew he would, and they buy their frozen drinks and a couple of microwaved burgers before clambering up into the truck bed, tipping their heads back to look up at the stars.

“So, Lexa,” he starts, fishing, and Clarke sighs. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t even really know what happened. She just--texted me an apology, and then never showed up.”

“Remember how I told you she was a dick, like, three months ago?” He gives her a _look_ , and Clarke rolls her eyes.

“You didn’t even _know_ her!”

“And yet, I was right,” he says sagely. “I’m right about everything, Clarke. You really should just listen to me, by now.”

She snorts, choking a little on her hamburger, and Bellamy slaps her back a few times with a grin.

“What about you?” she asks, once she can breathe again. “You’ve told me about all your classes, but how’s everything else?”

“Good.” He makes a face, like he’s mentally correcting himself. “Or, okay, I guess. I like the city, and I like school and living with Miller, but--I miss Octavia, and this town.” He glances around at the air softly illuminated by the neon signs behind them, and then his eyes land on her, steady. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Clarke says, lips numb from her drink. “I miss _this_ , just us talking. Just being with you.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, glancing away. “Me too.”

He’s fidgeting with his hands in his lap, and Clarke itches to take them and hold them still in her own. This is the Bellamy she’s gotten to know slowly, over the past months. He’s like a book, and she read the abridged version as a kid and loved it, but then when she got older she found out there were thirty more chapters that she’d never seen. And she liked the Bellamy she knew as a kid, the guy who was so much older and cooler than the rest of them, who smoked and wore leather jackets and felt as unattainable and dreamy as every music star she had a crush on.

But she _loves_ this Bellamy, the guy who doesn’t have anything figured out, but _tries_ so hard, at everything, and cares about everyone. The guy who texts her puns based on Shakespeare when he’s supposed to be writing an essay, and the one who doesn’t know what a comb is, and the one who regularly forgets to eat because he gets so caught up in other things, but never forgets to tell _her_ to eat, because he’s actually such a mother hen it’s unreal, but he never manages to take care of himself properly.

Clarke wants to take his hand, and the rest of him, and take care of him the way he deserves.

But she’s seventeen, and in high school, and she knows that he loves her, but not the way she dreams about. And that’s fine, it is, because she’d rather have Bellamy as a best friend than as nothing at all, but she can’t help wanting more.

She can be selfish, a little, as long as she never acts on it. As long as she never makes him uncomfortable, or pushes him away. She’ll just pine away, hopeless, forever. She’s got a plan.

But he makes it hard on her, when he looks at her through his lashes, raking over her dress and hair, a little undone from all the dancing, hanging in messy, sweaty tendrils around her face and neck.

“I should probably take you home,” he says, and she _might_ be imagining the way his voice goes just a little deeper, a little darker at the edges.

But she doesn’t think she is.

They hope down from the truck bed, and walk back around to the cab, driving in silence towards her house, headlights eerily bright against the unlit back roads.

Bellamy sidles up to the curb, and Clarke grabs her shoes from the floor of the truck where she’d slipped them off, and then hugs him around the middle. The steering wheel makes it awkward, but he twists to the side so he can squeeze her back.

“Thank you,” she says, voice muffled by his chest, and pulls back.

It’s too dark for her to see his face clearly, but his voice is still a little rocky. “You had fun, right?”

She grins, sliding out of the truck. “Best Prom Night ever,” she says, and his teeth flash white.

“Clarke,” he calls through the open window, when she shuts the door and steps away. She pauses, waiting, and he wets his lips. “You looked beautiful. Lexa was an idiot.”

There are so many responses on the tip of her tongue, and at least half of them are just some variation of _you should_ _date me_. “Yeah, but I’m kind of glad she stood me up.”

She turns and walks up the path to her front door, before he can say anything, and hears the rumble of the truck rolling off once she’s inside the house.

Clarke takes all the bobby pins out of her hair and then slides the flower bracelet from her wrist, sliding it into one of the heavy encyclopedias from her bookshelf, to press and dry. She knows it won’t last forever; it’s made out of flowers, and it’ll decay eventually, but she wants to keep it for as long as she can.

 

A few weeks into the summer before Clarke’s senior year, she walks into the kitchen to find her mother kissing a man that is not Jake Griffin.

She freezes in the doorway, staring, and it takes a moment before either of them even notice her, let alone pull away.

Once they do, she sees that the man is Mr. Kane--Marcus, from the hospital. The man her mother has sworn, multiple times, that she _hates_. Clarke recognizes him from the few hospital benefits and dinner parties she’s let her parents drag her to.

Clarke isn’t supposed to be home right now; she’d announced earlier that she would be spending the day at the lake with her friends, but she’d forgotten sunscreen, so she’d rushed back in, intending to just grab the bottle and run.

But now she’s staring at her mother and--what, her mother’s _lover_?--and they’re staring back, everyone uncomfortable and unsure what to say.

Clarke manages to find her words first. “What the _fuck_.”

Her mother winces. “Clarke--”

Clarke’s feet seem to remember how to work then, and suddenly she’s grabbing at the car keys hanging on the wall and bolting for the garage.

Even though she’s had her driver’s license for two years now, Clarke still doesn’t actually _drive_ all that much. Between her bike, the public transit system, and hitching rides with her friends, she just never seems to need to.

And she’s certainly never driven so far on her own before, taking the highway with clenched teeth and fists on the steering wheel, heading for the city.

Bellamy gave her his new address when he first moved, but she’s never been there, and she misses the exit twice and then she makes a wrong turn. Eventually she makes it to the squat gray apartment building, like little square blocks stacked one on top of the other. He’s on the third floor, and she parks in an unmarked space and sends a prayer to the traffic laws that she won’t get a ticket, or towed.

She’s already sent a couple of texts out--one to Raven, to let her know she won’t be joining them at the beach, one to Bellamy, to let him know she’s coming over, and one to her father, to let him know that she won’t be coming home tonight. She’s eighteen, and her father has gotten used to her spending the night with Octavia, or Raven, over the years. And it’s not like her mom’s going to contradict it.

 _God_ , her _mom_ . She thinks back to that scene in the kitchen, replaying across her mind no matter how many times she tries to forget it. The worst part is how _familiar_ they seemed, like it wasn’t the first time.

Actually, that might not be the worst part. She isn’t sure what the worst part is. Maybe the whole thing.

Clarke has her beach bag, already stuffed with an extra change of clothes and a few toiletries, and if worse comes to worst she’s sure Bellamy won’t be too scandalized if she uses his toothbrush.

This is why she isn’t good at spur of the moment actions; she’s a planner. She makes to-do lists, and checks them twice. She makes a pros and cons column for most of her big life decisions. She doesn’t like being unprepared, it makes her anxious.

But she wasn’t really thinking when she jumped in her dad’s BMW and took off. She could have gone to the lake with her friends, or even asked to spend some time alone with Octavia, to go over what she saw, and yell about it, and decide how to move forward. They would have understood.

But--she wasn’t really thinking about what the most logical step would be. She just needed to see Bellamy, and so she plugged his address into her phone and drove.

He pulls the door open before she can even knock, wearing a pair of pajama pants and an old threadbare shirt and some too-big rain boots that are clearly not his. He looks surprised to see her already on his doorstep, which means he was probably heading down to wait for her in the parking lot.

“Clarke,” he says, looking her over like he’s searching for injuries, anything for him to fix. “What happened?”

Clarke shakes her head, unsure how to answer, and instead just launches herself at him. She hasn’t seen him since Prom, and it’s only been a couple of weeks, but he’s her best friend and she’s _missed_ him.

He catches her easily, wrapping his arms around her, and she hates how well they fit together, because she can’t just not know this. She can’t just not know what he feels like when he holds her.

“I caught my mom having an affair,” she says, muffled by his shoulder, and he swears before holding her even tighter, walking them both backwards into the apartment so he can shut the door.

Clarke’s relationship with her mother is strained in a way that always makes her feel guilty, because she _knows_ her mom isn’t a bad mom, not even close, and she _knows_ she’s lucky to have the family she does. She looks at parents like Harper’s, who act like she doesn’t exist, and Raven’s mom, who gets drunk and throws glass bottles at Raven’s head like a dart board, and Aurora, who stopped being a mom years ago, and Clarke _knows_ she should be grateful that her mom loves her so much, she’s willing to pester her about grades and college applications.

But she and her mom have never had the easy kind of relationship that she wishes they did. They love each other, but sometimes it feels like they wouldn’t, if they weren’t family. And it’s hard to really be open, with that thought in the back of her mind.

Clarke’s relationship with her dad is everything that she wishes she and her mom had too, easy and loving in a natural way that never feels difficult. It’s no secret that he’s her favorite, and that if she had to pick between them, she’d pick him every time.

She’s pretty sure kids aren’t supposed to have favorites, between parents, just like parents aren’t supposed to have favorites between their kids, but she can’t really help it.

Bellamy sets her down, but doesn’t let go of her, instead leading her over to the shitty couch across the room. He doesn’t argue when she slides into his space immediately, just tugs her in again, rubbing a hand down her back, soothing. “So what happened?”

“I walked in on them in the kitchen. It’s this,” she scoffs, all of the emotions that had previously formed a hurricane inside her slowly melting into anger. “This _asshole_ from the hospital, who she said she hated-- _hated_ , Bellamy, for _months_ ! And they were in the kitchen, just, my dad could have walked in at any moment, you know? And it was so clearly not the first time and--” She shakes her head, choking on the rest of the words, because _how could she?_ The thought screams itself over and over in her mind: _how could she?_

“Shit,” Bellamy says, and she actually laughs, just a little. She feels him press a kiss to her hair, all dry, fraternal comfort, and it doesn’t even make her heart hurt this time. She just needed this, him holding her, listening, cussing out her mom. “Clarke, I’m so sorry. That sucks ass.”

She snorts, rearranging herself so they slide together more comfortably, and she’s basically straddling his lap now, but he doesn’t seem to care. “Can I stay here tonight?”

“You can stay here as long as you want,” he says, and she even believes him. If she asks to move in, right now, she has no doubt that he’d say yes.

She doesn’t ask, obviously. She doesn’t even have a _toothbrush_. But one night can’t hurt.

“What do you need?” he asks. “Hot chocolate? Trash TV? Pizza rolls?”

Clarke hums, not pulling her face from where it’s nestled between his shoulder and his jaw. She might actually never move, not unless he makes her. “Just you.”

Bellamy’s hand stutters against her spine, just barely, so quick she almost thinks she’s imagined it. “I can do that.”

She does have to move eventually, of course. They’re human, and they need food, and they need to pee a few times. Bellamy cues up Netflix on the TV, because Lincoln apparently has an account, and they watch a show that Clarke can’t for the life of her pay attention to, eating some leftover Hawaiian pizza that Bellamy digs out of the fridge.

“What happened to every meal needing even portions of fruits and veggies?” she teases when he hands her a couple of slices piled up on a paper plate.

“That was mostly for Octavia’s sake,” he shrugs, taking a bite of his own. “I’m a poor college student, now. We’re scavengers, Clarke. We eat whatever we find in the kitchen.”

Miller comes home from work eventually, and if he’s surprised to see Clarke there, he doesn’t say. He just gives her a grin and a wave, collects a truly monumental amount of food from the fridge, and then holes away in his bedroom down the hall.

An hour later, she meets their third roommate, Lincoln. He _is_ taller than Bellamy, and broader too, which she didn’t think could be possible. Sleeves of colorful ink poke out from his shirt sleeves and collar, winding around his skin, and he has his head shaved into a tasteful mohawk. He’s brought home a paper bag filled with half-stale chocolate croissants, because he works at a bakery and every night, they get to reap the benefits, such as that night’s expired pastries.

Lincoln is nice, but reserved, and after he makes small talk with them for a few moments over croissants, he disappears into his room too.

“What are you gonna do?” Bellamy asks, when it’s just the two of them again. It’s late, sometime after midnight, and Clarke’s brain is feeling fuzzy, her eyes itchy in that way that makes it hard to keep them open. She’s struggling to focus on his words, especially when they’re both horizontal, with her head pillowed on his chest and his arm moving rhythmically along her side. “About your mom?”

She turns her head into his chest and breathes in. “I don’t know. I know I should probably tell my dad about it, and it’s shitty if I don’t, but--I don’t really _want_ to. He always talks about how he’s loved my mom since they first met, and this would crush him. But, he deserves to know.”

“It’s not shitty if you don’t tell him,” Bellamy says, mild. “I get why you don’t want to.”

“Mostly I just hate that she put me in this fucking awful position,” she grumbles.

“Yeah, that’s the shitty part,” he agrees. “If you don’t want to tell him, don’t tell him. And if you do, do, but Clarke, none of this is your fault, okay? It’s on your mom.”

“I know,” Clarke hesitates, but she’s tired enough to just close her eyes and say “Sleep with me tonight?”

She doesn’t realize how it might sound until Bellamy goes completely stiff, hand freezing against her. It’s dark enough that she doesn’t think he can see her blushing, but she keeps her eyes closed just in case.

“Not, like--just out here. Like this. I don’t want to move.”

She feels him start to relax gradually, hand beginning to move again, and there’s a fondness in his voice. “Yeah, of course. Whatever you want.”

 _I want you_ , she thinks, and she falls asleep to the sound of the TV and his heart beating underneath her cheek, the feel of his hand, the warmth seeping through his t-shirt and into her skin.

Clarke isn’t sure how he manages to get up without waking her, but when she opens her eyes morning sunlight is streaming through the windows and she’s alone on the couch.

She pads down to the bathroom only to find the door cracked, with Bellamy brushing his teeth at the sink. He gives her a smile, mouth filled with foam, and she laughs.

“Can I use that?” She nods to the toothbrush once he’s done, wiping his chin dry with an old dish towel.

Bellamy raises a single brow, eyes going just a little darker than usual. “Yeah,” he shrugs, voice rough from sleep, still. “Knock yourself out.”

Clarke tries not to think about the fact that he just had this exact toothbrush in his mouth--it’s still wet, and she knows that should make it gross, but it doesn’t.

She’s allowed to want things that are a little gross. And when she starts brushing her teeth, she can’t help thinking about when she was in middle school, and everyone was being teased for sharing water bottles, because that was basically like kissing.

If sharing a bottle was basically kissing, what’s sharing a toothbrush?

 _Pathetic_ , she answers herself, spits one last time, and walks back out to the kitchen.

Bellamy manages to cobble together some breakfast burritos from the eclectic ingredients he scrounges up, and they eat over the breakfast bar, which is essentially just a chunk of laminate countertop superglued to the edge, so it hangs out further.

Clarke didn’t really take the time to study Bellamy’s apartment last night but now that she can, she sees it’s kind of a dump.

As if he can hear her thoughts, he shoots her a glare. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything” she smirks, kicking at his foot from her bar stool.

“It’s a preemptive _shut up_ ,” he says, kicking back.

Miller comes out sometime during their kicking war, and rolls his eyes at their shenanigans until Bellamy starts breaking off pieces of tortilla and throwing them at him, which of course means that Miller starts throwing some back, because they are all very mature adults, here.

Clarke doesn’t end up heading home until noon, and only after Bellamy forced her to eat a poptart for lunch.

“You know this doesn’t count as sustenance, right?” she asks, licking the strawberry filling from her lips. “I could have literally eaten a piece of cardboard and it would have given me the same amount of nutrition.”

“Shut up Clarke,” he says cheerfully. “I’m a nurturer, alright? I’m nurturing you.”

“Oh, is that what you call it.”

He hugs her again, tight, in front of the BMW. It hadn’t been towed _or_ ticketed in the night, and Bellamy had followed her down the stairs barefoot, to say goodbye.

“I’ll see you in a couple months,” he tells her. “Annual End of Summer Extravaganza, remember?”

“Slash Octavia Blake’s Birthday Party,” Clarke grins. “A month and a half.”

He snorts. “Can’t believe I fucked that up. Don’t kill your mom before then, alright? I don’t want to have to visit you in prison. I’m too pretty.”

“I’d rule the prison within a day,” Clarke says. “I’d protect you.”

He grins, and she does too, and for a moment they just stand there like that; him in his pajamas and bare feet, her in her sundress meant for a lake, grinning stupidly at each other in the parking lot.

“Bye, Clarke,” he steps back onto the curb while she slides into the car.

“Bye, Bell.”

Her mother’s car is gone from the garage when she gets home, which she’s grateful for. She still doesn’t know how to be in the same room as her mother, let alone what to _say_. Clarke heads upstairs and packs a bigger bag, with more clothes and her toothbrush, and leaves a note on the counter saying that she’s going to spend a few days at Octavia’s.

She takes her bike and leaves the BMW for her dad, and walks in to find Octavia playing one of Monty’s weird imported games on the Playstation. She doesn’t say anything when Clarke tosses her bag onto the catch-all chair, and flops down beside her.

“Where’s your mom?”

Octavia snorts, sounding just like her brother. “Hell if I know. How’s Bell?”

Clarke looks at her from the corner of her eye, but O is still facing the TV screen, impassive. “He’s good. Misses you. His apartment’s a dump.”

Octavia snorts again, this time delighted. “God, I _know_ , right? I keep telling him he should move somewhere better, with a balcony or something. What’s the point of living in an apartment if it doesn’t even have a balcony?”

 

Clarke isn’t any closer to figuring out how to face her mother, and has gotten exceedingly better at avoiding her completely, nearly three weeks later when Aurora overdoses.

Bellamy drives in from the city to be with Octavia, and they wait in the hospital for two days for their mom to wake up. Clarke waits with them, switching sides intermittently, holding first Bellamy’s hand and then Octavia’s, but always letting them lean on each other. Everyone else stops by at least once, to offer their condolences, and whatever they bought from the gift shop downstairs.

Miller brings a deck of cards and they all gather in a circle in the waiting room, to play poker. It helps, a little. It’s a distraction, and that’s what they need.

Aurora wakes up at two in the morning on the third day, and Bellamy sees a lawyer that afternoon, about getting her name off the deed for the house.

Clarke isn’t there for the conversation that he has with Aurora, after that. She doesn’t know exactly what he says, but she knows that Aurora checks herself into rehab, and she doesn’t come back to the house.

It’s easy for Clarke to forget about her own issues with her mom, or at least shove them to the backburner, and lose herself in the Blakes again.

First, there’s moving Bellamy back into the house, which of course they all help with, filing up down the stairs of his shitty apartment and loading up Miller’s truck before filing in and out of the house. It’s the best kind of deja vu, because last time, she was helping him leave, and now she’s helping him come back to them.

Then, Bellamy decides that they need to actually _clean out_ the house.

“What do you mean?” Clarke asks, glancing around at the clutter that’s basically just become another set of furniture, over the years. She hardly even notices it anymore; it’s just another aspect of the house, like the bow window in the dining room, or the wood panelling on the walls. The Blake house is like the rings of a tree; like if they cut into the clutter, they’ll find evidence of years gone by, a whole lifetime’s worth of memories stored up.

But Bellamy has his hands on his hips and his mind set, and so they set about sorting through everything that’s been stacked up and collected over the years. They form piles in the front yard--things to keep, things to sell, things to trash, and things to give away. They decide to have a garage sale, setting up some folding card tables that they stumble upon in the attic, with Clarke and Octavia detailing signs to post around the neighborhood, and advertise.

Soon enough, her whole summer is being spent at the Blake house, just like before. She’ll wake up and shuffle over to the nearest pile of boxes or book stacks that needs to be gone through, and she’ll sort until she gets hungry, or until someone gives her something better to do.

The house becomes crowded with people, rather than things. Someone is always sorting, and someone else is always running the garage sale outside, and there’s always at least a small crowd of customers perusing through old vinyl records and bird watching guide books and deerskin winter gloves and paper mache globes covered in fruit stickers and old water-stained jewelry.

Clarke goes home to replenish her cache of clothes, and take a shower in her own bathroom, and remind her dad she isn’t dead. But every other minute of her time is spent away from her own house, and subsequently her mother.

“I just don’t know how to _be_ around her, you know?” she says, meandering her way down the aisles of Harris Teeter with Wells, because they’re both spoiled, and they want to get the good burgers for Bellamy to grill tonight. It’s the last Friday of summer vacation, and therefore the Annual End of Summer Slash Octavia Blake’s Birthday Party Extravaganza.

Wells hums, not unsympathetic, but a little tired of having to listen to Clarke complain while never listening to his, or anyone else’s, advice, and then continuing to complain when nothing ever changes.

But sometimes she just wants to whine. She knows her own flaws.

“Have you considered actually _talking_ to her about it?” Wells asks pointedly, and Clarke pretends not to hear him.

She glances at the list on her phone, which Octavia texted her earlier. “Uh, okay, we need lemon juice and coconut water. Oh, and limes. And Octavia said--”

They turn down the next aisle and bump carts with someone else. An apology is on the tip of Clarke’s tongue when she actually looks up and sees who it is.

Graham Wallace is, honestly, _the_ worst of the worst people Clarke knows personally. He’s the nephew of Dean Wallace, which means he can say and do basically anything that he wants without any accountability, because nepotism is a bitch.

Ontari Nordskov, Graham’s on-again off-again _something_ , isn’t much better. And she’s just a sophomore, which somehow makes it worse. When Clarke was a sophomore, she was busy hanging out with her friends and sometimes getting high. Ontari’s biggest hobby seems to be making sure that everyone around her is constantly miserable.

Graham smiles like a cat, which just makes Clarke hate him more. She _likes_ cats, she doesn’t want to associate them with Graham Fucking Wallace. He doesn’t deserve the comparison. “Griffin, Jaha,” he greets, because apparently it’s a _thing_ for high school bullies to only ever use surnames. It’s like they got all of their social cues from Full Metal Jacket. He eyes the contents in their shopping cart--two twelve-packs of soda, carbonated water, a bulk case of beef patties, hamburger buns, marshmallows and all the nonalcoholic margarita mixes that they can legally buy. It is so obvious that they’re having a party, and Clarke mentally winces. “Big night?”

“Yeah, we’re gonna marathon _Dancing With the Stars_ ,” Wells says.

Graham raises a brow, clearly not buying it. “You’re gonna drink twenty-four cans of coke?” he asks. “Just the two of you?”

“I didn’t actually know you could count that high,” Wells says, mild, because he’s kind of the _worst_ at not escalating things, especially when bullies are involved. Wells hates bullies.

Graham’s smile only widens, while beside him, Ontari looks like she’s very genuinely trying to burn them both alive with her eyes.

He flicks his gaze to Clarke, and she scowls back at him. “What was that you said, earlier? Octavia? As in Octavia Blake?”

She isn’t _actually_ surprised that Graham knows who Octavia is. It’s a small town, and Octavia is very popular, and she’s been throwing the biggest end of summer party for several years, now. Honestly Clarke is more surprised that it took this long for one of the Academy scumbags to hear about it, and invite themselves.

Graham shares a pleased look with his sort-of girlfriend. “We’re always ready to slum it up in the boonies. They do throw the best parties. I guess I just never pegged you two as the type.”

Clarke seethes silently while beside her, she can practically feel Wells calculating the odds of his winning a fight if he just decked Graham right here and now, in the middle of the Harris Teeter.

He must decide the odds aren’t in his favor, because his hands stay on the car handle, while Graham and Ontari mosey by.

“We’ll see you there.”

“We’re gonna be lucky if they don’t invite twenty of their friends,” Clarke hisses, once they’re out of sight.

“We’re gonna be lucky if they don’t invite one hundred of their friends,” Wells sighs, and eyes her a little. “I hope you realize this never would have happened if you would just _talk to your mom_.”

“Maybe if I get arrested for mass murder tonight, I’ll get locked up in solitary and never have to talk to my mom again,” Clarke muses, and Wells shakes his head at her, deeming her a lost cause.

It’s still early when they arrive back at the house with the groceries, and Clarke goes upstairs to work on where she left off in her sorting. This is the last day of the garage sale, with everything they don’t manage to sell being donated to the thrift store where Monroe works.

Clarke’s sitting with a box filled with old piles in the upstairs hall, when she pulls out a page that she recognizes as one of her drawings. It’s from when she was little, the first night she stayed over, and drew the constellations that Bellamy told her about. She checks the front of the cardboard box and finds, written in blocky capital letters with marker, CLARKE.

The rest of her constellation illustrations are in there, along with a dozen other drawings that she’s done over the years. Bellamy has kept them all.

It feels like the sort of thing she should ask him about, but she can hear him outside, haggling one of the neighbors over the price of a crate filled with old VHS tapes. So instead, she puts the box up on top of a bookshelf for safekeeping, and moves on in her sorting.

As usual, their friends arrive throughout the afternoon, to help cook and set up, piling the garage sale leftovers into the station wagon so Clarke and Bellamy can drive over to the thrift store and drop everything off.

The radio is on, Bellamy’s hands relaxed on the steering wheel and his hair tied back on top of his head, because he hasn’t had time to get a haircut recently. Clarke turns the music down just a little, and says “So I found a box of my old drawings in your room.”

Bellamy coughs a little. “Did you want them back?”

“No,” she says, amused. “I’m just surprised you kept them this long.”

“You’ve seen that house, Clarke. Blakes keep everything. We’re hoarders. It’s in our blood.” But even he knows it’s a weak excuse, and he shoots her a glance from behind his sunglasses. “They’re good drawings, I dunno. You’ve always been good at art. I guess it just seemed like a shame, to throw them out.”

“I kept most of the flower bracelets you made me,” Clarke admits, because fair’s fair. If he’s going to confess to something cute and sentimental, then so is she. That’s just how they are. “I’ll be reading a book sometimes, and I’ll turn the page and one will just fall out, because I forgot I put it in there.” It’s happened at least three times.

Bellamy grins, clearly pleased. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You were always good at making stuff with your hands.”

Monroe is waiting for them outside the store when they pull up, and the three of them unload everything pretty quickly, dropping it off in the entryway for the employees to pick through in the morning, deciding what to put on the shelves and what to throw in the dumpster.

Monroe hitches a ride back with them after, and chatters on about how excited they are to be a _junior_ this year, and how even though they technically came out as nonbinary last year, it was a relatively quiet affair but now they feel ready to be more open about it at school.

It’s nice, watching the sunset while they drive, listening to Monroe, watching Bellamy as he shifts his glasses, or wets his lips.

The rest of the guests show up after dark, as usual. Miller pulls up with Lincoln, and two men that Clarke doesn’t recognize, one blond who takes Miller’s hand as they walk, and a taller, darker man who follows after them a little awkwardly, like he’s not sure where to go.

Miller introduces them easily, as Bryan, his boyfriend, and Jackson, a grad student at their school. He seems to know Bellamy, lighting up when he sees him, and Bellamy looks happy enough to pair off with him, offering him a beer and catching up.

Octavia, who had moments ago been deeply invested in a game of Quarters against Monty, hones in on Lincoln immediately, like he’s got a beacon under his skin. Clarke watches, amused, as she crosses over and does her best to flirt with him, while Lincoln looks simultaneously charmed and deeply uncomfortable.

“Figures,” Monty sighs, coming up to stand beside Clarke. She turns to see he’s looking from Octavia and Lincoln, to Miller and Bryan, and back to Clarke. “What’s the point of being hot jailbait if they’re all already with people their own age?”

“Illegal, Chantal,” Clarke says, mild. It’s no secret that Monty’s been pining after Miller since basically forever. “And Lincoln is still single, as far as I know, so Octavia at least has a shot, I guess. If he’s into that.”

Monty sighs a second, heavier time. “So’s Bellamy, which means it’s only a matter of time for you.”

Clarke does feel startled at that, turning to him with wide eyes. “Me and--no, that’s not--he isn’t,” she rubs her face, and can feel him mentally laughing at her. “He doesn’t look at me like that. He’s known me since I was like, six. He still thinks I’m a kid.”

“Yeah, I call bullshit,” Monty says. “There’s no way he’d look at you like he does, if he thought you were a kid. Bellamy likes kids, but not like that.”

He laughs when she shoves him, and then demands alcohol, like she doesn’t have a half-full cup of rum and coke in her hand.

That’s when Lexa finds them.

Clarke hasn’t actually seen Lexa since she ran out on her, which had seemed a little weird, but she’d just assumed Lexa must have left for New York early. Clarke still sees Finn around town sometimes, in the grocery store or at the movie theater, and it’s always awkward, but at least she knows he’s still _alive_.

Now, Lexa stands in front of her looking more casual than Clarke has ever seen, even in all the time that they dated. She’s wearing a pair of well-fitting jeans, and a tank top slashed down the sides, leaving ladders of material that expose the pretty lace of her bra. Her hair is loose and soft-looking, and her makeup is less severe.

Clarke takes all of this in, staring with her mouth open because honestly she’s drunk and pretty shocked to see her ex-girlfriend at her best friend’s house party. Then she notices that Lexa’s not alone.

Clarke has seen enough photographs of Costia to recognize her, and even if she hadn’t, the fact that her hand was clasped in Lexa’s would do it. She’s just as pretty as her pictures, in a tie-dyed sundress with a cheetah-patterned headscarf smoothing the wild curls from her face. There’s a hoop through her nostril, metal catching the light from the fire and winking at her.

“Clarke,” Lexa says, sounding nervous, and Clarke looks back at her. “I wanted to apologize, for the way I left things with you--”

Costia steps up to her best friend’s--girlfriend’s?--side. “It was my fault,” she interrupts. “I got in a _minor_ car accident, and Lexa kind of freaked out.” The look she gives Lexa can only be described as sappy. “She showed up at my door the same day, having just _driven_ eight straight hours. And she had this poem--”

“ _You are the earth_ ,” Clarke repeats, with a wry smile. Lexa at least has the decency to look embarrassed, but Costia preens.

Clarke hadn’t thought she’d been holding onto any residual hurt or bitterness about Lexa leaving, but looking back on it, she definitely was. But it’s hard to see them as they are now, two best friends in love and happy, and feel upset about it.

“Do you want a drink?” she asks, and Costia lights up while Lexa relaxes. Clarke’s never seen Lexa so relaxed when she’s surrounded by this many people, and she chalks it up to Costia’s influence. She’s clearly very good for her.

“Tequila sunrise?” Costia asks.

“We have some orange jello shots,” Clarke offers instead, and leads them over to the cooler.

Clarke isn’t sure who starts it, but suddenly they’re all huddled around the fire pit, having a drunken impromptu talent show.

Octavia demands to go first, because she’s Octavia, passes her beer to her brother, and does three cartwheels in a row, because she’s Octavia. Jasper makes a drum out of one of the tree stumps they use as stools, and beats out the entire theme song from Tarzan. Harper can tie a knot in a cherry stem. Monty knows the entire numerical amount of pi, and then says it _backwards_. Raven does a handstand, on one hand, which earns her a round of applause.

“Clarke, you’re up!” Octavia demands, making grabby hands for Clarke’s cup.

Clarke clears her throat a little, for effect. “Who here has seen _The Breakfast Club_?” Of course they all have, and she nods, satisfied. “Okay, now who here has a tube of lip gloss I can borrow?” A few of them laugh, catching on, and Harper has some lip gloss, passing it over. Clarke shakes her hair back, slides the open tube into her cleavage, and lines her lips masterfully with no hands. She gets a few wolf whistles and laughs, passing the tube back, and looks up to find Bellamy watching her from across the fire. He smirks, and she grins. He laughs.

Lexa sings something in French, and she doesn’t have the best voice, but it’s clearly a love song and it makes Costia blush, which means the rest of them get to heckle the couple and that’s always fun.

Lincoln can make his pecs dance, and everyone demands to put their hands on his muscles while he does it, so they can feel them move. It’s possible that she and Octavia and Monty keep their hands on him a _little_ longer than absolutely necessary, but nobody can prove anything, and he doesn’t seem to mind.

Bellamy, for his trick, snatches the bottle of cheap vodka from Murphy’s hand, who only complains a little, since Emori is planted in his lap and he seems, generally, happy. Bellamy ignores him and takes a swig of alcohol before taking one of the sticks in the fire, lifting the flaming end to his mouth. He spits, and breathes fire.

Everyone shrieks and then cheers, and Bellamy tosses the stick back into the pit, flushed and happy.

“When did you learn to do that?” Octavia demands, and Bellamy shrugs a shoulder, sitting back on his stump.

“Just now.”

Miller clears _his_ throat now, to get their attention, and stands with a giant white rock in one hand. He opens his mouth, gives a dramatic pause, and then launches into Hamlet’s entire Act III soliloquy, word for word.

Clarke is feeling drunk and warm and happy by the time Graham and his crew arrive, and she feels Wells tense up beside her.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Octavia asks them, looking ready to kill, or if not kill, then at least seriously maim someone.

“It’s a party, right?” Graham asks, eyeing their group with a Disney villain smirk. They’re all wearing pretty much identical outfits, which seems creepy. They already have to wear school uniforms for Ark Academy, why would they want to look like a monolith in the summer too? All the boys are wearing brightly colored polo shirts and some variation of beige chinos, while the girls are wearing saran wrap dresses that make them look like sardines. “We’re here to party.”

“You weren’t invited,” Octavia says hotly.

Graham gestures lazily towards Wells and Clarke. “They invited us.”

“No we didn’t,” Wells says, even. “You invited yourselves after hitting us with your cart in the grocery store.”

Then it’s a stalemate as they all meet each other’s stares, until one of the guys from Graham’s crowd makes a noise of disgust. Clarke watches as he storms across the yard, and she turns to see where he’s headed.

Bellamy must have led Jackson off to the side a little, closer to the house and away from the fire pit crowd, where they proceeded to start making out against the wall.

Clarke honestly doesn’t even have enough _time_ to feel jealous--not that she would; she knows the difference, between a drunken make out session at a party, and feelings. She doesn’t want a drunken make out session with Bellamy, not if that’s all she’d be getting--before she’s filled with a blend of fear and rage. Fear, because some homophobic asshole in chinos is about to punch her best friend, and rage because _some homophobic asshole in chinos is about to punch her best friend._

Octavia is physically closer to her brother, though, and she can sniff out the seeds of a fight like a shark, so she wastes no time in launching herself at the guy.

He gets to Jackson first, and manages to land one punch before Octavia leaps onto his back like a jaguar, and literally _bites_ him.

He screams, and that’s all it takes. Suddenly, the yard is a free-for-all.

Clarke manages to see Wells actually sock Graham in the face, and she sees Lexa hit someone with a lawn chair, but then she loses track of everything except her own fights, swinging out and doing her best to land a hit even though her vision’s blurry at best.

Clarke has never been in a fight before, but she watches a lot of violent television, and once she gets her hand on a stick to swing, things get a lot easier.

It’s over almost right after it starts; someone shouts “COPS!” and everybody scatters pretty much immediately.

Clarke ends up in the backseat of the Lexa’s car, between Costia and Jackson, half in Bellamy’s lap after he managed to drag Octavia out of the heart of the brawl, and shove her in the front seat.

“Drive!” he demands, and Lexa shoots down the road so quickly that Clarke has to close her eyes, pressing her face against the skin of Bellamy’s neck to steady her breathing. He holds her close, and they’re both slick with sweat, and she’s pretty sure her lip is breathing, but then suddenly they’re laughing from the adrenaline and insanity of it all.

They just got in a _brawl_ with a bunch of asshole rich kids in Bellamy’s front yard.

He reaches over across Clarke, thumbing at Jackson’s chin to turn his face this way and that, surveying the damage. He’ll have a bit of a bruise on his left cheek, but that’s the extent.

“Still pretty,” Bellamy teases, and Clarke tries not to care.

But then suddenly his hands are framing _her_ face, and he’s frowning as he studies her split lip. This close, she can see the smattering of bruising around his eye, and grazes the skin with her finger, watching him try not to flinch.

“Still pretty,” she tells him with a smirk, which just strains her cut more, and Bellamy huffs at her.

“Oh, good. I was worried.”

He leans over the console to give Lexa directions, and at first Clarke thinks he might be taking them to the 7-Eleven, but instead they pull into the all-night soda shop diner, where she and the Blakes used to go for brunch on the weekends sometimes, if they could afford it.

She’s a little relieved; the 7-Eleven feels sort of personal, by now. Like something that only belongs between them.

But she doesn’t mind sharing the diner, and she’s actually _starving_ , so she wastes no time in scrambling out of Bellamy’s lap while he laughs, reaching out to steady her by the hips when she sways. She forgot she was still drunk.

“Act sober,” he warns her. “You’re underage.”

“ _You’re_ underage,” she says.

He snorts. “Solid burn.”

They all pile into a booth, with Clarke, Octavia and Lexa sitting across from Bellamy, Jackson and Costia, and order a truly massive amount of greasy food and coffee.

“I suppose I’ll pay,” Lexa offers, and for a moment it looks like Bellamy might argue, just on principle.

But then he seems to think better of it, and offers her a sunny grin, nudging Clarke’s foot under the table, like a dork. “You know what? Yeah, it’s honestly the least you could do.”

Lexa gives him a look that borders offense and bemusement, and Bellamy pretends not to see.

He does mouth a _sorry_ to the waitress, when Octavia starts whining about how she wants _maple pe-can waffles, Bell, not maple pee-can, why can’t anybody SPEAK properly?_ Clarke shoots him an indulgent smile, because yeah, this is their Octavia. And even as Bellamy and Lexa start to bicker over the correct translation of his name, and her orange juice starts to make her lip sting, Clarke still feels warm and content, sitting in this diner with these people, bruised and scraped and still a little drunk. Octavia falls asleep before she’s even finished her plate, and Bellamy has to carry her back out to the car, after the rest of them are done.

“I swear to god, she’s like a flare gun,” he grumbles, trying to buckle her in.

Lexa pulls back up to the Blake house around sunrise. The yard is chaos, of course, littered with cans and cups and bottles and lawn chairs strewn about, and every single table has been flipped over like someone just systematically went around tipping them. There are a few people passed out on the grass, like there always are, and undoubtedly more passed out inside.

“It was nice to meet you,” Clarke tells Costia, and they share a private smile. There’s a strange sort of connection that comes out of dating the same person. Clarke has experienced it twice, now, and both times were different.

“You too,” Costia smiles, and Clarke even believes her.

“Try not to date anyone else while you’re in love with her,” Clarke tells Lexa, mild, and it might be sort of hypocritical, but Lexa doesn’t point that out.

“I won’t,” she says, deadly serious, and Costia kisses her.

Clarke’s actually rooting for them, and maybe there’s a part of her that’s thinking if they can make it, then she and Bellamy might not be so unattainable.

Bellamy carries Octavia inside to put her to bed, and Jackson follows after him sleepily. Clarke waves Lexa and Costia off, watching as they disappear down the road, before she turns back to the sky, slowly getting lighter as the world starts to wake up.

She finds her way to the couch, dragged out earlier the day before just for the party. Just for this moment, really, since it’s far enough away from the yard to never really be used _during_ the parties.

Clarke assumes that Bellamy went to bed with Jackson, but a few minutes later he sinks down beside her with a groan, making a face as he stretches his arms over his head.

Clarke is sore too, and she knows she’ll only get sorer, but she doesn’t really want to move just yet. She wants to sit here, quiet and still, and watch the sunrise with Bellamy.

The sun lights the trees up with yellow, and Bellamy takes her hand.

 

“How is this my last year of high school, and it’s already the fastest?” Clarke asks from the sofa, where she’s sprawled out with her feet hanging off the edge, drawing the ceiling fan above her using negative space. But negative space is _hard_ and she keeps getting distracted.

It feels like just yesterday was the last day of summer, but it’s already Thanksgiving.

Her mother had been furious when she noticed Clarke’s split lip, scabbing over, the Monday after the fight. But Clarke had shrugged her off easily, saying she bit into it too hard while eating, and rushed off to hitch a ride with Wells to school.

Wells got a car for his eighteenth birthday; it’s new but sensible, a family-safe SUV that he cherishes, and likes to drive _everywhere_ , even the quick mart just down the road.

But Clarke was a little proud of her battle wound. Her knuckles were still tender, because she didn’t know how to throw a punch, but she was otherwise unharmed. Wells was sporting a bruise by his hairline, but didn’t seem bothered by it. And he fucking _simpered_ when they passed by Graham in the hallway, nose clearly broken, and he just ducked his head and walked off. Clarke didn’t know Wells could look so smug.

Now, Clarke’s lip is completely healed and Bellamy is in the kitchen, finishing up the last of the veritable _feast_ he’s prepared, both because he loves leftovers and because he always assumes more people are going to show up than actually do.

“I just like to be prepared,” he’d said, defensive, when Clarke had brought it up to him.

“You made four pies. _Four_ , Bellamy.”

He’d crossed his arms. “I like pie. _You_ like pie, and so does Octavia. Don’t act like we won’t eat all four pies.”

It was a fair point, but four still seemed excessive. And that was nothing compared to the fact that he prepared a turkey _and_ full ham, and two different types of stuffing, and three different casseroles. He’s been nonstop cooking for three or four days. Honestly, the man plus Thanksgiving is a menace.

Clarke blames Murphy. She knows he probably isn’t _actually_ at fault, but she’s blaming him anyway. He just has a guilty sort of sense about him, and also there’s his whole thing with food.

Murphy _might_ be an Iron Chef in the making, if he ever developed anything close to self-discipline. Which is incredibly unlikely.

“I just never know who might need a place to go on Thanksgiving,” Bellamy finally admitted. “What if Jasper’s grandma forgets the holiday? Or Harper’s parents go on a cruise and leave her behind? Miller and his dad might decide they wanna come over. I just--I want there to be a place for everybody, just in case.”

It’s sweet, and so unbelievably _Bellamy_ , and Clarke can’t believe it took her this long to understand. She gives up on her sketch with a sigh and crosses over to stand beside him at the counter, leaning right up against his side, taking his hand with a squeeze.

“That’s really nice, Bell.”

If she didn’t know where to look, she wouldn’t know that he’s blushing, but she does, so she sees. “Yeah, well,” he says, gruff, and she squeezes his hand again before letting go.

That’s been happening a lot lately, too. The _touching_. He’ll put a hand on the small of her back if she’s walking in front of him, just guiding her. Or she’ll take his hand in hers, just because. He’ll let her play with his fingers while they watch TV, or doodle on the skin around his knuckles when she’s bored. They’ll walk up to each other, leaning in close and tight, fitting together, practically holding each other up. He’ll play with her hair while they read on the couch, or lay his head in her lap when he’s tired, and let her run her nails along his scalp like a cat.

It’s honestly--a lot. But it doesn’t just feel like another step in their friendship, it feels like a brick building towards something _more_.

For the first time, Clarke finds herself thinking that he might actually, _actually_ feel the same way.

Bellamy hums, reaching around her for the whisk, putting a hand steady on her shoulder just for a moment while he does, before moving back. He probably didn’t need to touch her, which means he just wanted to, and Clarke is almost drunk off the possibility.

He makes her help with the rest of dinner, of course. There’s still the mashed potatoes to make, and the cranberry sauce simmering on the stove, and the sweet potatoes that need to go in the oven.

Clarke manages to get most of the mashed potatoes whisked before she scoops some out with a finger, and swipes it against his nose, after he complains that they’re still too lumpy.

Bellamy stares back at her in shock for a moment, making her giggle, raising her finger to her mouth to lick off the rest of the mash without thinking. She sees his eyes darken, tracking the movement, and by the time she realizes what that might mean, he’s gotten cranberry sauce on her cheek.

After that, it’s a war. Clarke slathers her fingers in mashed potatoes and runs them through his hair. Bellamy grabs her around the middle with one arm, holding her close while he draws on her face with cranberry. The whole kitchen, and themselves, are a mess by the time Octavia walks in and demands to know _why_ there’s a food fight going on without her.

They fight each other for the showers, too, racing the water heater.

In the end, Miller and his dad _do_ come by, with a store-bought pecan pie to add to the collection, and Jasper calls to ask if he can bring his grandmother too, since all they have in the house is some ramen.

And of course Bellamy was right; they do eat all four pies. Clarke rolls her eyes when he points it out, but she lets him feel smug about it.

She collapses on the couch after dinner, after collecting up the dishes and leaving them to soak in the sink. She’s filled to the brink with warmth and food, sure she might actually die this time, and it doesn’t get better when Bellamy flops down half on top of her, head heavy in her lap.

But she’s not about to push him off, so she starts to card her fingers through his hair instead, detangling his curls.

The house is quiet for a moment, the air soft and warm around them. Everything still smells like cinnamon, and Clarke feels herself drifting closer and closer to sleep.

Of course, when everyone else is tired, is when Octavia finally feels the most awake. She kicks Bellamy’s legs to make room, and turns on the dog show to coo at the border collies.

“Whoever raised you should have taught you some manners,” Bellamy grumbles, and Clarke sees Octavia roll her eyes over his head.

“Thanks for dinner, big brother. Don’t pretend you don’t like this family bonding, domestic shit.”

He snorts, breath hot against the skin of Clarke’s stomach, and she tips her head back and grins. He really _does_ love this domestic shit.

When she glances back, she sees O giving her a look that says _don’t think I’m not making fun of you too_ , and Clarke takes it because honestly, there’s no defense. Bellamy is lying with his face in her lap while she pets him, clearly loving every second. She’s let herself become more obvious about him, as they gravitate towards each other more and more, and at this point there’s no way she can deny that she is very into Bellamy Blake’s arms and voice and _freckles_ , and that she would like to ride his face but also raise a family with him.

But there’s no way she’s going to admit _that_ , either. Not yet.

“I hope the shar pei wins,” Bellamy murmurs, voice muffled by her thigh.

She tugs at his ear. “You’re just saying that because you like the character from High School Musical.”

He swats her hand away and grins sleepily. “Well, yeah,” he says, like it’s obvious.

Octavia throws a pillow at them.

 

This winter is the coldest winter they’ve had in the last twenty years, apparently. It’s all over the news, and trending on twitter, and Clarke honestly should have known it was a sign.

She’s managed to successfully avoid being caught alone by her mother so far, but on Christmas Eve, she’s searching for a snack at night, and she’s cornered.

Clarke would have spent Christmas at the Blakes’ too if she could, but she knew her dad was looking forward to spending the holiday together. She should have known her mom would take advantage of that.

“Clarke,” her mom says, and Clarke slams the fridge door, whirling around to find her mother in matching pinstripe pajamas, wringing her hands, looking out of place in her own kitchen. “We need to talk.”

“Talk about what?” Clarke hisses. Her dad is probably asleep upstairs, which is why her mom took this moment as her chance. He always goes to bed early on Christmas Eve, because he likes to wake up at the crack of dawn to open presents. “About how you’re fucking someone who isn’t dad?”

Her mom winces at the words, but Clarke can’t find it in her to regret them. They _should_ hurt. Her mom _should_ feel uncomfortable, and guilty.

“Clarke, I’m--”

“What if _I_ don’t want to talk about it?” Clarke asks, gritting her teeth together. Her eyes are burning, because she always cries when she’s angry, which just infuriates her more. “What if I don’t want to talk about how I walked in on you with some coworker you claimed you _hated_?”

“Clarke,” her mom pleads. “Honey, it’s _complicated--_ ”

The overhead light clicks on, blinding them both for a minute, making Clarke squint as her vision blooms in white bursts at the edges. Finally, once her eyes have adjusted, she turns to find her dad standing in the kitchen doorway, staring back and forth between both of them. His face is blank, which tells them all they need to know.

He’s heard everything, or at least enough. Her mom lets out a strangled sound, like a sob she’s just tried to swallow, and Clarke pushes past both of them, running towards the garage.

She barely has her boots tugged on before she’s in the BMW, and pulling out onto the ice-slick road.

Clarke has to drive twenty miles under the speed limit, scooched up to the edge of the seat so she can squint out through the windshield and see. They don’t usually get snow here; they’re too close to the ocean. But this winter has been extreme, and snowdrifts on all sides threaten to sink her car as she swerves her way across black ice.

She finally makes it to the Blakes’ road, but the loose gravel hasn’t been plowed, which means she gets stuck almost immediately.

But she can see the lights of the house, just in the distance, so Clarke wraps her arms around herself, wearing only pajama pants and a thin sweater, and steps out into the snow.

She realizes it’s a mistake, basically immediately, but she’s already half-hopping, half-marching through the drifts towards the house, so she isn’t about to stop or turn around now.

By the time Clarke makes it to the front door, she can’t feel any of the skin on her body--except her ears, which _hurt_ \--and her teeth are chattering so hard that she thinks they might fracture. She lets herself in, practically collapsing onto the couch, which means she practically collapses onto Bellamy, since he’s already sitting there.

She’s literally just fallen into his arms, but she can’t even be embarrassed about it. She’s too busy focusing all of her energy on not dying.

Bellamy, for his part, looks like a freezing, soaking wet girl just dropped onto his lap out of nowhere. Which is to say, he freaks out.

“ _Clarke_?” he asks, but she figures it’s rhetorical, since it is so obviously her. He wraps her up in the quilt that he’s wearing pretty much immediately, hugging her close and rubbing his arms up and down for friction, trying to warm her up.

It helps that he’s practically a _furnace_ , all warm tempting skin, and he hisses a little when her ice-cold hands slip under his shirt, pressing against his stomach, but he just reaches down and holds them there, letting her soak up his body heat like some kind of warmth vampire.

After a few moments, when she can feel her lips again, Clarke offers him a watery smile. “Sorry, I didn’t--I didn’t mean--” she starts hiccuping between words, breath coming in fragments.

“Hey,” Bellamy frowns, confused, even as he pulls her closer, and leans his cheek on her wet, tangled hair. “What’s wrong?”

And then she’s crying, and she’s _mortified_ by it, but she can’t stop. Bellamy just hugs her, smoothing the hair from her face, hands soothing on her back as he lets her make a mess of his sleep shirt.

“I ruined Christmas,” she whispers, when she can form words again.

Bellamy pulled back, just enough to frame her face, running his thumbs against the wet skin of her cheeks, wiping at the tears there. “Not possible.” He presses his lips to her forehead, and she burrows in even closer, but it still doesn’t feel close enough.

“My mom tried to talk to me, and I--I let it slip, what she did. And my dad heard it.”

Bellamy sucks in a breath, still running a hand slowly up and down her back, helping her focus her breathing. “Clarke, that isn’t your fault.”

“If I hadn’t--”

“If your mom hadn’t cheated on your dad, this wouldn’t have happened,” he says, firm. “She’s the one in the wrong, here. _Not you_.”

Clarke sniffs, shifting to look at him. “I got my dad’s car stuck in the snow outside.”

He smiles a little, amused. He’s always amused by how bad of a driver she is, and she makes a face at him. Driving on ice, in snow is _hard_. “We’ll dig it out in the morning,” he promises.

Clarke nods, but he’s still looking at her so earnestly, nothing but warmth and fondness that she wants to make a nest in, and they’re close enough that she can feel his exhales hit her chin. She has to close her eyes for a moment; it’s all so overwhelming.

“Do you need anything?” he asks. “Dry clothes? Hot chocolate? Hot shower?”

The last one sounds so tempting that she actually _aches_. Even as she’s started to get the feeling back in her fingers and toes, Clarke still feels so cold, and craves heat like a hunger.

“Shower,” she decides, and he helps her up the stairs, because her legs are still all pins and needles, and can’t be trusted.

Bellamy grabs her an extra set of pajamas--which are really just some old sweatpants and a t-shirt of his--and then leaves her to strip off her wet clothes, dropping them in a soaked heap on the floor before stepping into the steam and hot water.

It stings at first, the way all extreme temperature changes sting, but then the hurt gives way to soothing warmth, easing the tension and cold out of her body until Clarke feels languid and alive again.

She doesn’t stay in for as long as she’d like, because it still isn’t her water bill. But she does manage to wash her hair first, using the peach-mango conditioner that she knows is Bellamy’s--if he asks, she’ll just say she doesn’t like the coconut smell of Octavia’s, but she really hopes that he won’t ask--before towelling off and changing into Bellamy’s clothes. They’re huge on her of course, and she has to roll up the hems of the pant legs, which she knows will make him laugh.

Clarke finds Bellamy in the kitchen, pouring freshly made hot chocolate into two mugs. She leans into his side, and he puts the emptied pot down before wrapping an arm around her. “Feel better?”

She nods, taking her mug and following him back to the sofa. “Octavia didn’t wake up?”

Bellamy snorts. “You know O; she could sleep through the apocalypse.”

It’s true, and Clarke grins at the mental image. The chocolate is perfect, because Bellamy always makes it perfectly, but Clarke’s hair is still wet and the air is cooler than it was in the shower, so she shivers.

Bellamy frowns, immediately worried. “You’re still cold?”

“I’ll adjust,” Clarke shrugs, but Bellamy plucks the mug out of her hands instead, and says “Actually, I have an idea.”

‘“Dangerous,” Clarke teases, but she watches him disappear upstairs and then come back a moment later, arms piled high with pillows and blankets from his bed.

He tosses them down on the carpet and grins at her bewildered expression. “Blanket fort?”

Clarke snorts a little, because it’s silly, isn’t it? She’s eighteen and he’s twenty-three, they’re certainly too old for _blanket forts_. But of course she slides down to the floor with him, and tells him that he’s constructing the wall of throw pillows wrong, and then she has to show him the right way to do it, until finally the whole living room has been turned into a soft, cottony nest of warmth.

“Okay,” she admits, sipping at her chocolate from inside their cocoon. “I’ll admit; this was a good idea.”

“All my ideas are great,” Bellamy says, and she rolls her eyes.

“This is why I never compliment you.”

Somewhere outside of their alternate, cotton dimension, Bellamy’s phone goes off.

“It’s midnight,” he tells her. “Officially Christmas Day.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure this is how you wanted to spend it,” Clarke mutters without really meaning to. It’s just--it’s bad enough, that she ruined Christmas for her own family. But now she’s ruined Bellamy’s, and Octavia’s, too.

Bellamy reaches out and wraps a hand around a loose curl of her hair, only slightly dry. The look in his eyes makes her heart stutter and restart. “It really is.”

He’s the first to look away, dropping his hand back down and clearing his throat, like it might somehow erase that moment from her mind. “Presents?”

Clarke blinks at him. “What?”

“It’s Christmas, so do you want your present now, or do you want to wait until later?”

She should probably wait. His present is still at her house, because she hadn’t thought to grab it before she’d rushed over.

Why is it that whenever she makes brash decisions, it’s always to see Bellamy?

“Now,” Clarke decides, because ultimately, she’s very impatient.

Bellamy grins and ducks out from under the blanket to fetch her gift, sliding back in within a second and dropping it down on her lap. It’s heavy and rectangular and very clearly a book. She smiles.

But then the newspaper that he wrapped it in falls away, and Clarke’s expression changes. It’s not just a book.

“Constellations and Their Origin Stories,” she reads out loud, and when she looks up she finds Bellamy looking nervous, running a hand through his hair.

“I figured--you liked the ones I told you, so,” he shrugs a little, and Clarke sets the book aside carefully before crawling into his lap and throwing her arms around him.

“I love it,” she tells him, and he laughs, sounding a little breathless.

“You haven’t even read it yet.”

“I don’t have to.” She squeezes his shoulders, before moving away. “I love it, Bellamy.”

She made him a portrait, a painting of him and Octavia as the Greek deities Apollo and Artemis, respectively. Clarke knows she could have actually bought him something nice; she’s rich, and he’s an easy man to shop for. Books, or gift cards for book stores, or really old and fancy maps. But she’s pretty sure he’ll like the painting. He kept a box filled with her throwaway drawings for _years_.

Octavia finds them asleep side-by-side in the fort, later that morning. Clarke isn’t sure if Octavia is annoyed about the fact that they’re spooning, or just the fact that they built a blanket fort in the middle of the night _without her_. Judging by the fact that O has now taken up residence under the blankets and refuses to leave, she’s willing to bet it’s the latter.

If Bellamy was uncomfortable with waking up pressed up against Clarke’s back, an arm hooked around her middle holding her to him, then he gives no sign, and so Clarke doesn’t bring it up either. It’s fine. Their friendship is already ridiculously tactile; they can platonically spoon, sometimes. She wouldn’t mind, if this was their new normal.

After Bellamy makes sticky buns for breakfast, they all venture outside with some shovels, to dig out Clarke’s car. It’s right where she left it, thankfully unharmed, and they get it free within the hour. Clarke drives it extra-carefully and parks it in their driveway, and soon lunch turns into dinner, and dinner turns into watching _It’s A Wonderful Life_ until two in the morning, and then that turns into falling asleep against Bellamy’s shoulder while she pages through her new book.

Clarke doesn’t end up going home until two days after Christmas. She finds her parents waiting for her, and they decide to hold a family meeting, something which hasn’t been done since the day they told her that her grandmother died.

The three of them sit around the living room table, and each wait for someone else to speak first.

Her father is the one to break the silence. “Clarke, sweetheart, your mother and I have talked about it and--we’re getting a divorce.”

It isn’t anything that Clarke hasn’t been expecting, but it still feels like she’s been punched in the gut. She’s spent so long _not_ talking about this, about what she saw, about what her mother has done, about what it might mean for her family, that now that everything’s out in the open, she isn’t really sure what to say.

In the end, she doesn’t actually say much of anything. She thanks her dad for telling her, and asks when things will be finalize--apparently according to state law, they can’t file for divorce until they’ve been separated for a year--and then goes back upstairs to work on an essay. She doesn’t say anything to her mom. She doesn’t have the words for her, yet.

Her friends are largely sympathetic when she tells them, but Clarke knows it’s hard for them to really understand, and that only makes her feel guilty. Wells’ mom died when he was so young that he can barely remember her. Raven’s mom is an angry drunk, and she never knew her dad. And even though Bellamy hugs her and tells her he’s sorry, Clarke knows her parents getting divorced is nothing compared to his life with Aurora.

“Sometimes I think I don’t have things bad enough,” she admits. She’s talking to Wells about it, because Wells almost has it as good as her, and because they’re studying for finals in his room. Raven was supposed to study with them, but she ended up staying late with the robotics club, because they’re trying to replicate the flux capacitor from _Back to the Future_ for extra credit in Shop.

“That’s stupid,” Wells says, mild, not bothering to look up from his notes. He’s pushing the end of a pencil against his lip, thinking. “Not having a shitty life isn’t a _bad_ thing.”

“I get that,” Clarke says, because she does. It’s not like she _wants_ her life to be worse than it is, but she can’t help feeling bad that it isn’t, especially when all of her friends’ lives are. “And I know it’s stupid and selfish to make other people’s problems about me, but I’m stupid and selfish sometimes.”

Wells, apparently realizing that the problem isn’t going to just go away by ignoring it, and that he’ll be able to get back to studying if he just helps her first, sighs and closes his notebook so he can focus on Clarke. “What’s bringing this on all of a sudden?”

“It’s not all of a sudden. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

“Okay, so why bring it up now? The divorce?” He must see from her expression that he’s right. “So, your parents are getting divorced and you feel bad for being upset about it, because at least they’re not dead or abusive?”

It always surprises Clarke, just how _quickly_ Wells can figure other people out. He’d make a good psychiatrist, probably, or maybe a lawyer. “Pretty much.”

“That’s stupid,” he repeats, but at least he’s smiling this time, a little sympathetic. “It’s okay to feel upset about this, Clarke. Your mom cheated on your dad, and now they’re splitting up. That’s worth some strong emotions.”

“I didn’t want _permission_ to be upset about it,” Clarke says, but she’s grinning now too, because of course she sort of _was_.

“Too bad, now you’re getting it. Feeling things because your parents are getting divorced won’t make you anymore of a spoiled brat than you already are,” he teases.

“Hey, you’re spoiled too!”

“Yeah, but I have a dead mom,” Wells points out. “So I’m way less spoiled than you.”

Talking with Wells does help, but talking with her dad is better.

Her parents talk things through and come to an arrangement pretty quickly, deciding that Abby should be the one to move out, leaving Jake with the house. Clarke, Wells and Octavia help load her mother’s things into the moving van that Mr. Kane--”Call me Marcus,” he’d told her, and she absolutely isn’t going to--rents for the day.

Clarke can’t help feeling relieved that her mom isn’t the one staying, and hasn’t even tried to convince Clarke to choose her over her dad. Probably because she knows she wouldn’t. Their relationship hasn’t become magically un-strained, now that the truth of her affair has come out. If anything it just gives them even less to talk about.

But the relief melts into discomfort that night, after her friends leave and Abby and Mr. Kane head home to unpack the uhaul. Clarke has spent more time in this house alone than not, between two parents with demanding careers and work-oriented minds, but somehow it’s never felt this _empty_.

Her dad is making dinner on the stove, and she leans against him, seeking comfort.

“Hey kiddo,” he tugs her in for a hug, and he smells like garlic. “What’s up?”

Neither of Clarke’s parents has seemed too broken up over their separation, certainly not as upset as Clarke thinks they really should be, and maybe that’s a sign that it’s for the best. Maybe they would have gotten divorced anyway, even if her mother stayed faithful. Maybe, like with her and Lexa, they’d just been waiting for the end.

It doesn’t make her feel any better about letting the secret slip, though. She still remembers her dad’s face that night, on _Christmas_ , and it makes her ache. “I’m sorry about you and mom.”

He makes an _ahh_ noise, letting her go so he can stir the pasta. “Not much to be sorry about. Your mom and I,” he stops himself, rethinking the words. “This was a long time coming,” he admits. “And it’s what’s best, for all of us. Your mother and I will always love each other, Clarke. We’ll always want each other to be happy, and being married wasn’t making us happy.”

“ _You_ were happy,” Clarke mutters darkly, without really meaning to. She can’t help it; they _were_ happy, and then her mother had to go and ruin everything by having an affair.

And maybe part of it stings because she _knows_ what it felt like, to be cheated on--or cheated with, maybe--so there’s that, too.

“Less happy than you think,” her dad says, voice light even with the heavy topic. “I couldn’t be happy if our marriage was making your mom miserable. And your mom can’t control how she feels. That’s not how love works.” He leans down to press a kiss to her hair, apparently finished with the conversation. “Now get some plates out, please.”

 

A few weeks before Spring Break, Octavia gets into a fight at school.

It wouldn’t be a big deal, normally. She’d get detention and Bellamy would bitch about it, and then everyone would move on.

But this time is different. The other kid ends up with a fractured rib, and Octavia throws a chair through the _window_. She has to pay for the damage, and for the hospital bill too. The principal wants to expel her. She’s always been a trouble maker, and this might be the last straw.

Bellamy calls Clarke when he gets home from picking up his sister, but he’s never been very good at talking over the phone.

“Just,” he makes a noise low in his throat that makes her chest hurt. “Can you just come over? Please?”

She’s already slipping on her shoes. “I’ll be right there.”

Bellamy meets her out front, where he’s chewing through sunflower seeds rapidly, spitting the shells out on the lawn. He stops when she pulls up, and she’s barely out of the car before he’s pulling her into a hug.

Even their hugs have changed, recently. Bellamy’s hugs have always been solid and warm, but now they’re _close_ , with his face turned into the crease between her neck and shoulder, and his arms tight around her back. He holds her and breathes and they only pull away because the BMW starts to chime, annoyed that the driver’s door is still open.

Clarke shuts it and turns to head inside, but Bellamy catches her arm and shakes his head. “O’s upstairs.”

They end up on their backs, side-by-side in the grass, watching the clouds shift above them.

“Who started it?” Clarke asks.

Bellamy snorts. “Octavia, obviously. She always has to throw the first punch.”

Clarke nods, because she does know that, and Bellamy lets her reach over to take his hand, brushing her fingertips over his knuckles while he speaks.

Apparently, Ilian broke up with her. She didn’t take it well.

“She’s really fucking lucky that Pike likes me,” Bellamy huffs. “He remembers me from earth science class. I never got in trouble at school.”

“Yeah, you just waited until _after_ school,” Clarke teases, and he gives a weak grin.

“Exactly. Fuck.” He rubs his face with the hand Clarke isn’t holding. “The school counselor wants her to see a psychologist.”

“Why?”

He makes a face. “Apparently she’s _exhibiting symptoms of a larger problem_ , whatever that means. But--whatever, right? I mean yeah, she gets in fights a lot. She’s always gotten in fights a lot. That just means she should take a karate class, or whatever.”

Clarke hums, but he can tell she disagrees, and jostles her shoulder a little. “I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t want to hear your opinion,” he says. “I know how hard it is for you to keep your mouth shut.”

“You like my mouth,” Clarke shoots, and she doesn’t miss the way he glances at said mouth before rolling over again to stare at the sky. She’ll let it go, for now. They have more pressing issues. “What’s the harm, in letting her see someone?” She holds a palm up when he immediately tries to argue. “I’m not saying there _is_ a larger problem, I’m just saying, it can’t hurt to look, right? It gets the counselor off your back, if nothing else, and sometimes it can help, talking to someone. And if it doesn’t help, you can still sign her up for karate.”

Bellamy studies her face for a moment and Clarke tries to keep her expression impassive. “How did I end up going to a high schooler for life advice?” he asks, and it’s mostly teasing, but Clarke’s stomach still drops whenever he points out that she’s still in high school, even if it’s only for another two and a half months.

“Just luck, I guess,” she says, forcing her voice to be bright and sunny, and leaning over to smack a kiss to his cheek.

He looks completely earnest when he says “Yeah.”

She squeezes his hand, where she’s still holding it in her lap. “I should probably go in and talk to her,” she muses. Octavia always does better when she can vent to someone, and all things considered, Bellamy isn’t the best sounding board at the moment.

There was a time when Clarke would have gone to Octavia first, instinctively. She wouldn’t have ever imagined that Bellamy Blake would call her because he loved her, and wanted her advice, and was her best friend.

Upstairs, she finds Octavia lying diagonally across her bed, texting furiously on her phone. Clarke flops down beside her on the mattress, looking up at the paper butterflies that Bellamy helped tape to the ceiling when O was little, on little bits of string so that they dangle and swing in the breeze.

“How come you didn’t tell me you and Ilian broke up?”

“I figured you’d hear about it from my brother first,” Octavia snaps, and Clarke winces. “Since you talk to him first about everything, anyway.”

Clarke tries hard not to feel guilty, but she’s not _wrong_. She was Octavia’s friend first, her best friend for years, and now she’s just--not.

Octavia knows she isn’t Clarke’s favorite, or priority, anymore and it probably stings.

“Yeah, but Bellamy doesn’t even know Ilian. And he sucks at gossip.”

Octavia snorts into the pillow, but at least she doesn’t sound angry anymore. “You’re right.” She lowers her voice two whole octaves, to imitate her brother. “ _Octavia, I don’t trust that guy._ Why not, Bell? _I just don’t. He’s got--floppy hair. It’s suspicious._ ”

It sounds just like something he would say, and Clarke laughs so hard her eyes water, picturing it. “I’m pretty sure that’s something he actually said about Finn, you know.”

“Oh, god he _hated_ Finn!” Octavia says gleefully. “ _I don’t know what you all see in him. He’s just some obnoxious kid. Why is his hair like that?_ It went on for _weeks_!”

Clarke bites her lip, trying to reign in her smile. “I didn’t know he was so vocal about it.”

“Just to me.” Octavia rolls her eyes when she notices Clarke’s face. “Can you chill? We were like thirteen, don’t be gross.”

“ _I_ was thirteen,” Clarke corrects, automatic. “And a half. You were twelve. I’m your elder, you should respect me.”

“Yeah, that’ll happen.”

They’re quiet for a moment while Octavia replies to someone on her phone, and Clarke tries--and fails--not to think about Bellamy.

Finally O finishes her text with a sigh, tossing the phone down to the mess of stray clothes and loose papers on her floor. She rolls over until she’s looking at Clarke, scrupulous. “So you’re like, stupid in love with my brother, huh?”

There was a time when Clarke would have denied it, or changed the subject, or laughed it off, but all of that seems pointless now. She’s been stupid in love with Bellamy for years, and she doesn’t think it’s going away anytime soon. Practically everyone except Bellamy himself has noticed.

“Yeah,” she says, and Octavia snorts again, amused.

“Not even gonna deny it?”

Clarke keeps her voice even. “Would you believe me if I did?”

“Fair enough.” Octavia sits up and rolls her shoulder, like it’s sore, and Clarke suddenly remembers why she came up here in the first place.

“So are you gonna see a psychologist?”

“Do you think I should?” Octavia’s voice is unreadable.

“Yeah, I do,” Clarke says. “I don’t think you’re like, serial killer-crazy, or anything, but it could be worth it, right? Just to talk to someone?”

“I talk all the time,” Octavia says, still impressively straight-faced. “People are always saying I should talk _less_.”

“A different kind of talking,” Clarke corrects herself. “What have you got to lose?”

In the end, Octavia only agrees to see one because Bellamy promises to buy her the nunchucks that she found at Monroe’s thrift store.

He calls Clarke after the appointment.

Octavia has bipolar disorder.

“It was only the first consultation and she said they should do more just to be sure, but I’m reading all this information she gave us and-- _fuck_ , Clarke. Everything fits.”

Clarke is scrolling down her computer as they talk, doing her own reading on the symptoms, and she has to agree. “Are you going to go back?”

“Yeah, I think we’re gonna try to swing by weekly, if my insurance can cover it.” Bellamy started working nights as a janitor at the community college, once he finished with his Associates, which took longer than expected since he had to pay his own way through school. He still bartends on the weekends, for extra cash, but the janitor gig is a good one.

“I think our mom might have it too,” he admits, quiet. “She was never diagnosed, that I know of, but--it’s genetic, and she’s always been pretty erratic, you know? Wouldn’t get out of bed for days on end, and then suddenly she was making cookies and dancing on the couch.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“The doc wrote her a prescription for Zyprexa, and I asked about the karate, which she said was a good idea--” Bellamy lets out a breath and pauses. “What are _we_ going to do?”

“Yeah,” Clarke frowns, hitting print on the page she found, of ways to help understand bipolar disorder. “We’re in this together, right?”

She can hear his smile. “Yeah,” he says, all soft and disbelieving. “Together.”

Not a lot changes after O’s diagnosis. She doesn’t talk about it much, which Clarke understands, although she knows her teachers and friends are informed. They’re all supportive, if a little uninformed, and everyone is relatively close-lipped and careful around her for the first few days, until Octavia finally snaps.

“I mean, god, it’s not like I’m _dying_!”

Everyone jumps a little and turns to look at her with wide eyes. Clarke, Monty and Jasper are sitting on the floor, trying to figure out how to hook up the new gaming system that Monty’s mom got him, while Wells and Raven sit cross legged on the couch, bickering about their shared government class.

Octavia stands in the doorway between them and the hallway, looking vaguely murderous.

Which isn’t, technically, _new_ for Octavia, but they’re all still a little on edge, anyway.

“We know you aren’t dying,” Wells says, words slow and measured, clearly trying to deescalate the situation.

“Then stop treating me like I am,” O says, fiercely. “I’m bipolar, not made of glass.” With a huff, she marches over to flop on the couch, forcing Raven and Wells to move and make room for her.

“No,” Jasper says sagely. “You’re made of _snow_ . Get it?” He glances around at them, grinning. “Because she’s bi _polar_?”

For a moment, no one says anything, but then they all break out into laughter at once.

“That may have been the worst pun you’ve ever come up with,” Monty says, wiping tears from his eyes.

Jasper looks smug about it. “Yeah, I can tell you guys really didn’t enjoy it.”

And just like that, things go back to normal. Octavia takes her mood stabilizers, and goes to see the psychologist every other week, and gets really into martial arts at the local YMCA. Clarke is able to ease through most of her classes; she’s a senior, and has always had pretty good grades because she actually _likes_ school and is a bit of a perfectionist.

Trig does give her a little bit of trouble. She isn’t naturally predisposed towards math, and Raven is too good at math to really be any help in tutoring, but Clarke sits next to a quiet, bookish girl named Maya in her class, and she’s nice enough to coax her through the lessons.

Then it’s April, and Clarke is holding her breath again, waiting for her college acceptance letters.

“Maybe I didn’t get in anywhere,” she says, voice muffled by a throw pillow where she’s sprawled out on the Blakes’ couch, wallowing. “And I’ll just become a starving artist, and live on the streets. Under an overpass or something.”

“Yeah, let’s pretend there’s a world where your parents and I would just let you be homeless,” Bellamy says from the kitchen, where he’s making them grilled cheeses. She can practically hear him rolling his eyes.

“Maybe I’ll just run away, to find myself.”

Bellamy crosses over, nudging her to sit up, and hands over her sandwich on a plate. Tonight’s his night off, and Octavia is out with the others at Jasper’s shed. They invited Clarke, but then Bellamy asked if she wanted to come over and watch some truly bad 80s movies that he found in the attic, and she cancelled on them.

Octavia just said _ofc_ , when Clarke texted that she couldn’t make it. Everyone knows by now that she’ll bail the minute Bellamy has any free time. She doesn’t even feel embarrassed about it anymore.

They moved the coffee table against the wall earlier, because Jasper had some Russian version of DDR to play, so Clarke lifts her feet into Bellamy’s lap instead.

“You know you’re gonna get in, right?” he asks, refusing to hit play until she looks at him, so she can see he’s serious. “Clarke, you’re crazy smart, driven, and your GPA is way higher than it needs to be. You could get into Harvard, if you wanted. You could go to _Yale_.”

Part of it is flattery, she knows, but she also knows he _means_ it. And she also knows that in another timeline, where Aurora Blake was a decent mom and Bellamy didn’t have to raise Octavia, he would be going to Harvard or Yale, too.

“But if I don’t, and my parents disowned me for being a failure, you’d totally let me move in, right?” she teases.

“That sounds like a possibility,” he agrees. “You can totally come live on my couch. Even if they don’t disown you.”

Clarke pats the cushion to the left of her, like she’s assessing it. “It is a very nice couch.”

He smirks a little, which is honestly just inconsiderate. “You won’t have to, though. You’ll get in.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, you’re a princess,” he says, teasing and nudging her in the side. “Princesses always get what they want.”

Clarke thinks _I want_ you _,_ and for one long moment she considers finally saying it. But then he starts the first movie, and opens his arm for her to settle in against him, and she knows she can’t tell him yet.

It’ll be soon, though. It has to be; she can’t keep going like they are, constantly close but not close enough. And she’s eighteen now, she’ll be nineteen before the year is over. He can’t just see her as some little kid anymore, not after everything. He has to see her how she sees him. It wouldn’t be fair, for her to love him this much, and not get him.

Clarke gets the first acceptance letter a week later, and rushes to Bellamy’s house, to tell him the news.

If Clarke had stopped to think about it, she would have realized that since it’s still late in the morning on a Saturday, Bellamy is probably asleep. But she didn’t, until she opens the door to his bedroom, letter still clutched victoriously in hand, to find him mostly naked and only half-covered by a quilt, because Bellamy is the kind of person who has to have at least one blanket, to sleep.

He stirs at the sound of his doorknob hitting the wall, where Clarke flung it open, and blinks out at her muzzily. “Princess?”

“Bell! Sorry, I didn’t--I’ll come back--” She should leave, but she’s stuck, eyes caught on the freckled skin of his back like a fishing lure. Clarke has seen Bellamy mostly naked before. In the summer, when they’ve gone swimming, or when he just lazed around the house in nothing but a pair of gym shorts, melting in the heat.

But it’s different now, seeing him in his _bed_ , looking warm and sleepy and incredibly inviting.

“What’s wrong?” Bellamy asks. With every passing second he starts to wake up more, and the bleariness in his eyes clears away. He sits up with a yawn, running a hand through his hair, thoroughly ruined.

Clarke holds up her acceptance letter, albeit a little weakly. She still hasn’t slowed her heartrate completely. “I got in! Well, to at least one school.”

Bellamy’s face splits open in a smile, bright and open, and she has trouble looking at it. Bellamy Blake smiles like the sun. “Yeah? Clarke, that’s awesome. So which Ivy League snapped you up? No, let me guess: Oxford.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, crossing over so she can perch on the edge of his mattress and isn’t just loitering in his doorway. “I didn’t even apply to Oxford, Bellamy. This is from Polis.”

Bellamy squints back at her, like he doesn’t actually believe what she’s just said. “Polis? Huh.”

“What’s wrong with Polis?” Clarke frowns, a little defensive, and he grins.

“Nothing, it’s a perfectly respectable school. It’s just--close. I guess I figured you’d be leaving for college. Going across the country to find yourself, or whatever.”

His voice is off, and Clarke thinks it might be a good thing. He thought she was leaving, and now he knows she’s not, and it feels like he’s trying hard not to seem happy about it. “I might find myself in Polis. I did apply to other schools, all over, but--I like this state. And Polis has a pretty good art program, so…”

“You’re majoring in art?” Bellamy asks, lying down. He’d known how much she loves art, but until recently, Clarke hasn’t had any real concrete idea of what she wants to do with her life. She loves art, but is that enough to make it a career? She isn’t sure, but she figures--people figure stuff out at college, right? That’s a thing.

Clarke lays down beside him, because it would be weird, sitting up, him looking up at her and her looking down on him while she talks. There’s enough space on his bed that they aren’t touching, but still close enough for her to feel the heat from his skin. “I’m not going to declare a major yet. Just get the pre-reqs out of the way and look at my options, you know?”

Bellamy hums, and then turns so he can yawn into his pillow, looking sheepish when she laughs. “Sorry. My shift didn’t end until eight.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Clarke says with a yawn of her own, and he pokes her cheek. “What? I’m not tired, yawns are just contagious.”

“Uh-huh.”

“They _are_ ,” Clarke says, and he smiles.

“Sure.” But then he moves a little closer, so she does too, and it’s easy to get lost in the slowness of his breathing, and the warmth of his bed.

This isn’t her first time waking up in Bellamy’s arms, and maybe that’s a sign that they shouldn’t have waited this long. She probably shouldn’t keep waiting; she can wake him up with slow, soft kisses against his skin, sliding on top of him so that when he opens his eyes, she’s the only thing he can see.

Then they’ll get carried away by passion, and she won’t have to tell him that she’s been in love with him since before she can remember. He’ll just _know_.

But then Bellamy’s eyelashes are fluttering, and he makes a face in his sleep as he wakes.

At least he smiles when he sees her, and doesn’t make a move to pull away. They’re tangled up in each other, and his quilt, and they’re both a little sweaty but neither of them seem to mind.

“Hey.” His voice is thick from sleep, and his breath is awful, but Clarke knows hers probably isn’t much better.

“Morning. Or--afternoon.”

Bellamy grins, reaching over to grab his phone off the end table and check the time. “Breakfast for lunch?”

“You already let me sleep in your bed,” Clarke teases, stretching when he finally disengages himself to stand up. “You don’t have to cook for me, too.”

“Maybe I just want you to come back. Give you some incentive.”

Clarke knows the smile she’s giving him is stupid, but then, so is he, for thinking he has to give her _incentive_ just to make her come back. Like there’s even a chance, that she’s not coming back.

“Honestly, you’ll probably have a harder time getting me to _leave_.”

“Well when you put it like that.”

She watches from the countertop, as he makes pancakes on the griddle. “I was actually going to ask your advice.”

“You don’t really have to,” Bellamy points out. “I’m a big fan of saying whatever I’m thinking, even if you don’t want to know.”

“ _Especially_ when I don’t want to know,” Clarke agrees. “But--specifically, your opinion on where I should go to school. If I even get into anywhere else.”

“You will,” he says, automatic, and then clears his throat. “Where else did you apply?”

Clarke applied to a dozen different schools, all good options, all across the country. Polis isn’t the worst school that she’s considering, but it’s not the best, lying somewhere solidly in the middle.

But it is the closest, and that’s the part that worries her.

“Worries you how?” Bellamy asks, when she mentions it. The pancakes are finished, and he slid up on the counter beside her, while they eat.

“I don’t know, I guess I just don’t want to be that person who stays home because it’s _safe_ , you know? Like, I know I could probably go off to California and survive, but I’m not sure I want to be that far from my dad, or you.”

Bellamy chokes on his next bite. “Me?”

“You’re my best friend,” Clarke reminds him. “That isn’t news.”

“No,” he ducks his head, smiling just briefly. “It isn’t. But if you’re worried you’ll regret not leaving, I think you should go.”

He’s just being honest, she knows, and it’s not like Clarke really expected him to beg her to stay. She wouldn’t have asked him about it, if that were the case. Bellamy will always have her best interests at heart, even if they aren’t his own.

“I still might. There are exchange programs and stuff I can sign up for, if I get there and decide that’s what I want to do. Or I could always transfer to some school in California. It’s not like I _have_ to move, completely.”

The look he gives her is fond, and amused. “You’ve already got this all figured out, huh?”

Clarke swipes a bite of pancake from his plate, with a grin. “I’m getting there.”

She does get into the rest of the schools that she applied to, but she still chooses Polis, in the end.

 

Clarke spends her senior Prom night at home, sick with the summer flu.

“You guys really don’t have to stay with me,” she says, for the tenth time, while Raven and Wells are playing War with a deck of cards on the end of her bed.

Raven points a sharp finger at her. “Of course we don’t, but we are anyway, so suck it up Griffin.”

“You’re stuck with us,” Wells agrees, patting her knee.

They abandon the cards in favor of a High School Musical marathon that’s on TV, while Clarke drifts in and out of consciousness. Eventually she wakes up to the sound of voices, trying to determine if they’re from the movie, or her friends.

“Surprise!” Octavia says, and hits Clarke in the face with some flowers.

“What--” Clarke opens her eyes to find a veritable party in her bedroom; Raven and Wells are still there, obviously, but now Octavia, Jasper and Monty have joined them, still all done up for a formal dance.

“This is the _second_ year in a row that I have been forced to experience Prom without you,” Octavia grouses, wiggling her way onto Clarke’s bed. “The universe is conspiring against us.”

“Clearly,” Raven agrees.

“I’m going to get all of you sick,” Clarke warns them, but Octavia just pats the back of her hand like a child.

“If it gets me out of the PSAT, I will let you spit in my mouth.”

Clarke’s friends, with the exception of Wells and Raven, have never actually spent that much time in Clarke’s house. They always meet at Octavia’s, or Jasper’s, and so it’s strange for her to suddenly see all of them in this space. They rib her about how big her house is, and the pink princess canopy over her bed, and then settle in with the collection of board games on her bookshelf. It’s nice, companionable, and Clarke doesn’t even sleep through most of it.

Her dad orders them pizza, and brings Clarke some soup, and Octavia braids her hair back for her when she complains about it sticking to the sweat on her neck.

Bellamy has to work that night, she knows, but he still stops by on his way to the school.

He’s brought her a lime green Icee from the 7-Eleven, and Clarke reaches up to hug him, even though she’s gross and sick, and the angle is awkward from her sitting in bed.

“Sorry I couldn’t be your date tonight,” he teases, voice low. Just for them.

Clarke sips at her drink until her head starts to threaten a brainfreeze. “I’ll let it slide this one time.”

He grins, and then makes Octavia move over so he can fit on Clarke’s other side, letting her fall against his shoulder with a sleepy sigh.

“Don’t you have to go to work?”

She feels him press a kiss to her hair. Across the room, she hears her friends cheer; they’re playing some variant of Shoots and Ladders. “I can wait a few minutes,” he says, and she curls into him.

Clarke doesn’t realize that Bellamy called into work until she wakes up, sandwiched between the Blakes. Octavia is pressed as close to the wall as she could get because she kicks in her sleep, and Bellamy is pressed close to Clarke, heavy breaths scattering her hair.

She rolls over and catches Raven’s eye, where she’s camped out on the carpet with a sweater bunched under her head like a pillow. She waggles her eyebrows at Clarke, and then glances over at the door.

Clarke nods, carefully untangling herself from Bellamy, and then crawling over him slowly so that she won’t wake him up. Her brain is feeling a lot less foggy, and her throat doesn’t hurt anymore. She and Raven head down to raid the kitchen.

She finds a tube of cinnamon rolls in the fridge, and starts to unstick them, to place on a baking sheet. Raven studies her from her spot at the breakfast bar. She’d applied for early admission at MIT, and got her scholarship back in December.

“So when are you going to tell him?”

Clarke doesn’t ask her to clarify; Raven would only scoff. Everyone really does know by this point--everyone except Bellamy. “I don’t know,” she says, honest. It’s not that she isn’t telling him on _purpose_. It just never feels like the right moment. Sometimes she’ll look at him and wonder how she’s even lasted this long not telling him, but mostly it’s just another part of her life.

Clarke Griffin, aged eighteen-and-a-half, 5’5”, she likes art, her favorite color is sky blue, and she is in love with Bellamy Blake.

“I guess you don’t have to,” Raven muses, peeling a browning banana from when Jake thought he might want to try making breakfast smoothies, and then promptly forgot about them. “But it’d be a waste, if you never do.”

Clarke eyes her a little, suspicious. Raven has become notoriously anti-romance ever since the Finn debacle, choosing to focus on building the first Skynet army instead. She makes fun of Clarke and Wells, whenever they want to watch a Nicholas Sparks movie. “Since when are you interested in my love life?”

“I’m interested in your _life_ life,” Raven corrects, around a mouthful of banana. “You’ve wanted to marry him since I’ve known you, and I want you to be happy.” She pauses, swallowing the rest of the banana before tossing the peel in the compost bin under the sink. “And I’m worried that if you don’t tell him before you leave, you never will.”

“I’m coming back,” Clarke says, prodding at the cinnamon rolls, like she hasn’t been thinking about the same exact thing. “There’s Thanksgiving break, and Christmas. I’d never miss an End of Summer Extravaganza.”

Raven levels her with a heavy look. “And what happens when you come home over Thanksgiving, and find Bellamy dating someone else?”

Clarke’s mouth goes dry at the thought, but her voice stays impressively even. “Then I’ll be happy for him.” It isn’t impossible. She’s done it before, with Roma, and Gina, and Jackson, and a host of nameless boys and girls over the years. Bellamy has never been a serial monogamist, but he’s not a _saint_. He hooks up, and dates sometimes, and Clarke has always been fine with it, because more than anything she just wants him to be happy.

But she thinks _she_ might make him happy. She really wants to be the one who makes him happy.

“Whatever,” Raven rolls her eyes, reaching over to pinch off a bite of dough from the baking sheet. “I tried.”

Jasper chooses that moment to appear in the doorway. He’s lost his suit jacket and neon pink bowtie, and all of his hair is sticking up on one side of his head. He shuffles over to flop against Raven, who makes a face but holds most of his weight anyway, patting him on the head like a dog.

“Rough night, buddy?” she coos, and Jasper groans.

“Caffeine?” He looks at Clarke, hopeful, and she laughs, pointing at the Keurig.

“Knock yourself out.”

But Raven already has a cup poured for him, apparently, and slides it over.

“You’re a goddess,” Jasper says, taking a healthy drink.

Monty stumbles in next, which means it won’t be long before the rest of them are up. He zeroes in on the oven, where the cinnamon rolls are baking, immediately. “Is that sustenance?” He slides up to the bar and takes Jasper’s coffee without a word.

 

That summer is spent in a whirlwind of trying to get everything ready for Clarke’s first year at university, and spending as much time as possible with her friends before she has to leave.

Raven and Wells are going to school out-of-state, and they try to coax Octavia into changing the date of party, but she flatly refuses.

“It’s _tradition_ ,” she says. “You can’t fuck with _tradition_!” She’s been spending more and more time at the gym, with the karate instructor Indra, who is apparently big on tradition and spirituality. She’s introduced Octavia to meditation, which means that now at any given time of day, they might walk in to find her sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor and humming.

But she hasn’t put her fists through any walls lately, so it’s not like they can complain.

Clarke makes an effort to spend more time with O, just the two of them, in preparation for her leaving--and it’s fun. They’ve both changed since they were little kids playing dress up, but they’ve always been friends for a reason. They start watching trash reality shows, talking to the TV screen and eating homemade chex mix on the couch.

Clarke wakes up to the sound of Octavia shimmying outside her bedroom window, in the middle of the night. They’d fallen asleep upstairs for once, haphazardly sprawled on O’s bed while watching Youtube tutorials on her laptop.

Clarke blinks the residual sleep away as she takes in the scene; Octavia straddling the window sill, half in and half out, clearly about to climb down the old wooden trellis leaning against the wall outside.

“O?” Clarke asks, muzzily, keeping her voice at a whisper so that Bellamy won’t hear.

Octavia looks up and flashes her a vicious grin, teeth looking sharp in the darkness. “Hey, I’ve got a date.”

“At one AM?” Clarke asks, amused.

“We’re both night owls. Don’t tell Bell, okay?”

“You know you could just go out the door. It would be easier, and it’s not like he’d be able to stop you.”

Octavia’s grin is like lightning, a burst and then gone. “Yeah, but this way’s more fun.”

Clarke can’t get back to sleep once she leaves, so she creeps downstairs, trying to avoid the creakiest boards, before she sees Bellamy awake on the sofa and realizes it’s a moot point.

He’s reading, but he looks up when she sits down, and smiles. “Hey. Can’t sleep?”

She shakes her head and he raises an arm, in invitation. She leans in, resting her head against his shoulder, and breathes.

Clarke invites Maya to the party, and smiles when she shows up early, and Jasper practically trips over himself when he sees her, like love at first sight. He even offers to give her a tour.

“A tour of what?” Harper teases, where she’s perched in Monty’s lap on a lawn chair. They’ve been taking things slow, but Clarke thinks they’re cute together. Puppy love. “It’s a house.”

“Ignore the yard decorations,” Jasper says, waving a hand at them. “Anyway, this is the fire pit that Bellamy dug for us when he was manly.”

“Is he saying I’m not manly now?” Bellamy asks, amused, from where he’s setting up the grill. Clarke pats his shoulder, all mock reassurance.

“You’re an old man now, Bell. It’s time to accept it.”

Jasper ignores them, and leads Maya towards the wisteria tree. “This is the tree that Monty and Octavia dared me to climb to the top of, and then laughed when I fell and broke my arm.”

“To be fair, we didn’t know you broke your arm at first,” Monty calls, and Jasper flips him off while Maya giggles, charmed.

“That’s the couch where mom and dad like to gossip.” Jasper points to the old floral sofa, and Bellamy and Clarke share a look.

“Who’s mom and dad?” she asks.

“You two, obviously.”

Bellamy crosses his arms, opening his mouth to argue, but Clarke stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “He’ll just say you’re being overbearing.”

Jasper ignores them, and points to the circle of tree stumps across the yard. “That’s where we had this massive _West Side Story_ fight, because Clarke invited a bunch of rich douchebags--”

“I didn’t _invite_ them---” Clarke frowns, but Jasper just keeps going.

“That dip in the roof is where Bellamy got drunk with his friends in high school and tried to jump off with a bedsheet, like a parachute.”

“I’m gonna kill him,” Bellamy decides.

Octavia shows up after that day’s karate practice, gym bag slung over one hip and hair braided back like a viking. She stands in the front drive with her hands on her hips, surveying the yard with a scowl. “What are you all _doing_?”

Bellamy at her mildly from where he’s reading his book, head on Clarke’s lap in the grass. “Waiting for you to grace us with your presence. Obviously.”

Octavia huffs at her brother and marches over, plucking the book from his hands. “Where _is_ everything? There are no streamers, no balloons, no keg stands--where is the giant gorilla, Bellamy?”

“In the attic, remember? You refused to throw it away. It’s probably completely deflated by now, but we can--”

Octavia hits him on the head with the book. “We need fireworks.”

“Why do we need _fireworks_?” Bellamy asks, snatching his book back. “Those aren’t even legal in this state.”

“We could buy some guns,” Monty offers. “And pretend they’re fireworks. Guns are legal.”

“Which is fucked up,” Harper adds, and they all make some noise of agreement.

But Octavia has her heart set on fireworks, and begins texting furiously, probably networking. If anyone has a connection for getting illegal fireworks on short notice, it’s Octavia.

“Your sister is going to become a hitman when she grows up,” Clarke says, as Bellamy settles back into her lap, trying to find where he left off in the story.

“Nah, that’s too highbrow. Mercenary for sure.”

Apparently, Octavia’s connection for illegal fireworks is actually just Raven.

“We really should have guessed,” Clarke muses, as Raven sets the robot down, far enough from the house that it won’t cause any damage.

“Probably,” she agrees, flips some sort of switch, and then steps back as the first of the fireworks launch into the air with a whine.

It explodes into electric trails of blue and red, and the crowd cheers. Jasper gets the music hooked up, finally, after some speaker malfunctions, and the sun sets behind the hill.

To Clarke’s surprise--and delight-- _Murphy_ is the first one to start dancing, and Emori jumps in too, letting him spin her around and dip her like they’re swing dancing in a jazz hall, instead of Bellamy’s front yard while Flo Rida blasts from a truck.

After that, everyone trickles in, forging a makeshift dance floor. Clarke lets Octavia and Raven drag her out too, and gets passed around among her friends until she’s out of breath and stumbling her way over to the drink coolers.

Echo’s there, and Clarke recognizes her from parties over the years. She was in Bellamy’s class, and Clarke thinks they might have hooked up once or twice. She grabs a hard cider from the cooler, glances up to see Clarke waiting, and then passes her one too.

“Thanks,” Clarke smiles, and looks around. Finn is here, but that’s no real surprise. He’s come to a few of the parties, since their break up, and while he isn’t really _friends_ with their group, they are at least friendly. Across the fire, she sees Bellamy watching the dance crowd with half a smile, solo cup in hand. Miller says something, and he laughs.

While she watches, Bree walks up to him, looking pretty in a crop top, with her hair pulled back. She smiles, leaning in to brush against his arm, and he smirks back at her.

Clarke has known Bellamy for long enough that she knows what he looks like when he’s flirting. She looks away, searching for something safer to focus on.

Beside her, Echo says “Poor girl.”

Clarke looks up, and Echo nods over to where Bree is now walking back to the dance mob, alone. “He never dances,” Echo explains.

Clarke thinks back to that first Prom night, when Bellamy showed up with a borrowed suit and a bracelet he made out of flowers. He’d let her tug him out onto the dance floor, let her take the lead with each song, let her lay her head on his shoulder when the music slowed.

She downs her cider and tosses the empty can out.

Bellamy smiles when he sees her, and it isn’t the face that he makes when he’s flirting, when he’s hitting on girls or boys that he doesn’t know yet, but it’s so much _better_ , because it’s the face he makes for her.

“Having fun?” he asks, eyes bright from the fire and alcohol.

“Mm,” Clarke hums, pressing up against his side. He makes room for her like she belongs there. “I could be having more fun, though.”

He raises a brow, and she grins, takes his hand.

“Dance with me.”

He doesn’t argue, doesn’t try to get out of it, just follows her out and then starts moving with the rest of them, laughing when her hair gets in his mouth, letting her put her hands on his arms to steady herself.

All at once, the music shifts to something dark and burning, and the air between them shifts too. Clarke watches the change in Bellamy’s eyes before she slides her hands down the skin of his arms and turning until her back is pressed against his front.

She moves with the song, like a current, and he rests his hands on her hip bones, thumbs grazing her skin where her tank top has ridden up from the hem of her shorts. For a moment, Clarke thinks _I’m grinding against Bellamy Blake_ , but then the thought is immediately replaced by the sound he makes, low in his throat, when she presses up against him.

Bellamy leans down to graze his nose up the column of her throat, brushing against the line of her jaw, breaths wet against her skin there. It isn’t a kiss, but it’s enough to make her head swim, drunk on the warmth of him and the summer night and the music setting them on fire.

The song changes, and they pull apart just enough that Clarke can look at him over her shoulder. They’re both breathing heavy, and she sees him track the movement, when she wets her lips.

Clarke leans up on her toes, gripping Bellamy by the shoulders so she can press her mouth against his ear. “Let’s get out of here.”

He doesn’t say no, and so she takes his hand, and leads the way back towards the house, back towards his bedroom.

Clarke has seen Bellamy head upstairs with girls and boys before, plenty of times, but it’s never been _her_ , and it’s never been _this_ \--every inch of her feeling electric as she takes the stairs two at a time, him laughing at her because she’s eager, because he’s _happy_.

Bellamy’s room is a mess like it always is, but she _likes_ the mess. She likes the clutter, the evidence that this is his space and he’s going to stay here for a while. She likes being able to recognize most of his things, knowing that she fits here, too.

He shuts the door, and then crowds her up against it, leaning in until they’re sharing shallow breaths but not kissing. “How drunk are you?”

She’s lost track of the exact number of drinks, but she knows enough to say “Moderately,” and he laughs.

He laughs again when she tugs at his shirt, trying to get closer. “So are you too drunk to do this?” he teases. “You’re being really unclear, here.”

“Bellamy Blake,” Clarke huffs, “If you don’t shut up and--”

Bellamy smooths a hand up the side of her neck, into her hair, smiles, and kisses her.

Clarke has spent an inadvisable amount of time, imagining what it would be like to be kissed by Bellamy Blake. In a way, it helped that she’s seen him kiss other people, and so she thought she knew what it would be like. She’s an artist; she prides herself on realism.

But this kiss doesn’t feel like she thought it would. It doesn’t feel the way it looked, when he was kissing those other people--like he was confident, and knew what he was doing, and they should just lie back and let him take the lead.

This kiss feels like a conversation, like he’s trying to _persuade_ her to want this, like he’s worried she might decide to walk away.

Clarke reaches up to run her hands through her hair, and opens her mouth, swallowing the noises that he makes--noises that _she’s_ pulling from him.

Bellamy runs his hand down her throat, over her collarbone and cups her breast, making her moan. “ _Bellamy_.”

“Fuck,” he pulls back, dropping his head against her shoulder with a laugh, all disbelief. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Believe it,” Clarke says, tugging on his hair, because as much as she wants to hear all about how he dreamed about this moment, _they could be kissing right now_.

Bellamy swipes another kiss to her mouth before moving lower, laying hot, wet kisses down her neck while Clarke tips her head back, to give him more room. “God,” he says, managing to make it sound profane. “God, Clarke.”

“Mm,” she agrees, doing her best to get him naked without having to actually separate his mouth from her skin. “Same.” She stumbles over the _s_ a little, because that’s a tricky letter, when she’s drunk.

It’s enough to make Bellamy pull back, to look at her, dark and scrutinizing. Clarke smiles, but he doesn’t smile back.

“You’re moderately drunk,” he says, slow, catching both of her hands where they’re still pulling at his shirt’s hem.

“So are you,” she points out, petulant. She isn’t sure why they’ve stopped kissing, but she doesn’t like it.

“I’m not,” he says, and she knows it’s true. He has a much better tolerance than she does, and he doesn’t like getting too far gone at these parties, not when there are so many kids around who might get out of control and need him. Clarke’s not convinced she’s ever seen Bellamy _actually_ drunk.

“Bellamy,” Clarke says, struggling for the words. “I’m--I’m not,” she swallows, realizing that there’s no point. He’s made up his mind, and nothing that she says will change it. He thinks she’s drunk, and maybe she is, but either way--this isn’t happening. _They_ aren’t happening.

It’s so stupid, and Clarke hates that her eyes start to water. It’s just--she’s waited _so long_ for Bellamy Blake to want her, and now she’s desperate and offering in front of him, and he’s turning her down.

He smiles, soft and careful, which just makes everything _worse_ , and presses one last chaste kiss to her mouth. “I should go check on everyone,” he murmurs, breath warm against her lips. “You can sleep here if you want.”

And then he’s gone.

For a moment Clarke looks around Bellamy’s room, feeling for the first time like she might not belong there. Then her gaze snags on his bed, looking rumpled and comfortable, and she crawls in among the sheets and pillows that still smell like him, and she must have been drunker than she first thought, because the ceiling is still spinning when she flops down on her back. She closes her eyes, sinking towards sleep immediately. She can be mortified in the morning, when she’s sober, and awake.

It’s still dark out when she wakes, but the clock on the nightstand tells her it’s been at least a couple of hours. Bellamy’s bedroom window is open, letting the sounds of the party filter in through the screen, which means she hears it when the music cuts off, and the shouting starts up.

For a moment, Clarke considers just ignoring it, and going back to sleep. Bellamy will take care of any problems. But then she hears _Bellamy_ shouting, and that gets her up again. She isn’t about to just let him take on another pack of rich douchebags on his own.

Except when she rushes out into the yard, she finds Bellamy is yelling at _Lincoln_ , shoving him in the chest, and getting up in his face with a snarl.

“-- _MY BABY SISTER_ \--” he shouts, and Clarke glances over to find Octavia looking ready to kill, being held back by Raven and Miller.

Clarke hadn’t _known_ that Octavia’s secret boyfriend was Lincoln, not really, but she isn’t surprised. Bellamy clearly is, and he isn’t taking it well.

But she doesn’t actually expect him to _hit_ him.

Bellamy punches Lincoln in the jaw, just one solid hit, and Octavia tears herself from Raven and Miller’s grasp, launching herself at her brother. She hits him once too, clearly a reflex, because then she just stands there, glaring at him.

Lincoln, for his part, only holds his own jaw, and doesn’t seem interested in hitting anyone.

Then, of all people, _Finn_ comes up, calling Bellamy a _cowardly thug_ for attacking Lincoln, and _misogynistic_.

“What the fuck did you just say?” Octavia spits, and then she slugs Finn in the face too, a lot harder. “That’s my _brother_.”

“Yeah, fuck you,” Lincoln adds. “That’s my ex-roommate.”

Bellamy looks at Lincoln, jaw clenching and unclenching where Octavia hit him. “She’s sixteen,” he says, but it sounds more like a warning than a threat.

“I know,” Lincoln says, and it sounds like reassurance. Bellamy _knows_ Lincoln.

“I’ll be seventeen in a week,” Octavia grumbles, but the tension in the air is already melting away. That’s just how the Blakes are. “You’re a dick,” she tells Bellamy,

He sighs, glancing over her head and catching Clarke’s eye. He doesn’t look away. “I know.”

“So is the WWE episode over?” Jasper calls, and then starts up the music again without waiting for an answer.

Clarke is still stuck on Bellamy’s gaze.

“You should ice that,” she says, reaching up to prod the bruise forming on his jaw, when he walks over to stand beside her.

“Probably,” he agrees, and follows her inside.

Clarke takes a package of cherry-flavored popsicles from the freezer, since there aren’t any bags of frozen peas, and holds them to his face. They don’t talk about what happened upstairs, but the shape of everything that they want to say is a heavy weight between them.

Changing the subject seems like a good idea.

“So, is getting in a fist fight at parties your new M.O.?” she asks, raising an eyebrow, and Bellamy huffs at her, made awkward by the bright red popsicles on his face.

“He’s twenty-four,” he says, like that explains everything. “And I didn’t start that last fight, your prep school friends did.”

“They weren’t my friends,” Clarke scowls, pressing the popsicles harder against his bruise.

“He’s too old for her,” Bellamy says, softly, and Clarke has a feeling they aren’t talking about Lincoln and Octavia anymore.

“She’s old enough to make her own decisions,” Clarke says, picking her words carefully. She’s still a little drunk, just along the edges, but she’s pretty sure she knows what’s going on.

“She’s barely got any life experience,” he says, and she can’t help snorting a little, just because-- _of course_ he’s worried about how much _life experience_ she has. At least he smiles, so he must know it sounds ridiculous, too. “I just don’t want her to jump into something before she’s explored other options. When she ends up with him, I want it to be because she’s seen everything else she could have, and she’s still picked him.”

He’s looking at her through his lashes, dark and serious, and Clarke feels her heart stutter and then restart. “But you think she will end up with him?”

Bellamy covers her hand with his, briefly, before taking the now melted popsicles from her grip, and moving to put them back in the freezer. “I hope so.”

Outside, the sun starts to rise.

 

Clarke’s father drives her out to Polis that Sunday, and buys her an early dinner once they unpack her room. She’s sharing with a sophomore named Anya, who seems sort of terrifying in a good way, and she likes the school just as much as she did when she last visited.

It doesn’t take Clarke long to realize that college is _very_ different from high school, even if her teachers at Ark Academy had liked to pretend otherwise. She very nearly flunks two tests in German, before she figures out how to balance studying, sleep, and her social life.

Clarke owes almost all of her social life to Anya, who introduces her to Niylah, who takes Clarke under her wing pretty quickly. Niylah is apparently one of those people that knows everyone and is always invited to everything. She owes the rest of her social life to her RA Roan, who throws dorm parties every other Thursday, so the new kids can make friends and mingle.

He does, in fact, literally use the word _mingle_.

He also always calls Clarke by her last name, like a weird stilted term of endearment. Apparently he went to Ark Academy too, and they just never crossed paths, which means they get to bond over shit talking their least favorite teachers, and complain about the uniforms.

Clarke likes most of her classes, even if some of her professors are heavy-handed with the workload, and while she doesn’t make a whole host of new friends overnight, she has Niylah and Roan and Anya, which is more than enough.

She still has her old friends too, of course, even if she doesn’t talk to them as much as she’d like. She still skypes Wells and Raven at least once a week, at the campus coffee shop that has the best wifi. Monty, Jasper and her have a groupchat going about their favorite dumb vampire show, and Octavia will sometimes text her random hate messages about her classes. She’s upgraded to assistant instructor at her karate class, and is considering making it a career, although of course she hasn’t told Bellamy.

And Clarke has Bellamy too, more than anyone. They still text every day, and call, and it isn’t the same, but it’s better than nothing. It’s better than losing him, like she thought she might.

They still haven’t talked about the fact that they almost hooked up right before she left. She’s not sure they ever will.

She hopes he still thinks about it like she does, imagining if they had kept going, if they had gone farther, getting herself off to the memory of his mouth on her. She hopes he misses her so much that sometimes he can’t breathe with it. It wouldn’t be fair, if she was the only one who felt this. And she’s coming to realize she can be selfish sometimes, with him. She’s leaning into it.

Clarke is excited to go home for Thanksgiving, excited to see her dad and her friends and _Bellamy_. She’s already half-packed when her phone rings in the middle of the night, just a week before break starts.

“Bell?” she answers, still mostly asleep. Maybe he thought she’d be awake still, studying.

But his voice sounds off when he says her name. “It’s Jasper…”

Jasper slit his wrists in the bathtub earlier that night, and was rushed to the ER.

Clarke rushes through getting dressed, and Anya threatens to flay her until she tells her what’s happened, and that she has to go _now_. Anya offers to drive her to the bus station, which is nice of her, and Clarke texts Luna who sits beside her in German, asking if she can maybe take notes for the classes she’ll miss.

But after that, Clarke has three hours to spend worrying, imagining all the worst possibilities, all the most horrible ways this could end. By the time they pull into Ark Station around dawn, she’s a mess of anxiety. When she sees Bellamy waiting for her, she just throws herself in his arms.

He clings back just as tightly, breath shuddering, which means he’s worried too. They all are; Jasper’s family.

“There isn’t any news yet,” he tells her, breath cool against her ear. “He was still in surgery when I left.”

Clarke nods, leaving a wet spot on his shoulder when they finally pull apart. He looks the same as he did when she left, and she’s sure she does too. Not much actually changes, in just three months. He’s still Bellamy, and she’s still Clarke, and she’s still hopelessly in love with him.

But right now, they have a friend to stress out over in a hospital waiting room, so she takes his hand and follows him to the car.

Six hours. Apparently that’s how long it takes, before the doctors realize that five anxious people camped out with shitty vending machine coffee, in shitty vinyl waiting chairs deserve to know if their friend is going to survive.

She’s sitting with her head on Monty’s shoulder, her hand tangled up with Bellamy’s on his knee, while Octavia paces like a tiger down the hall. Harper sits on Monty’s other side, quiet support, and none of them are speaking, or trying to distract each other from the heaviness of their thoughts. Jasper’s grandmother had been there earlier, but she was the one who called Bellamy, and he talked her into going home to rest. She’s old, and has been in the shallow end of Dementia for a while now, and she couldn’t do much for her grandson there anyway. Now Bellamy and Clarke take turns, forcing the others to drink water, fetching more shitty coffee when they run out, convincing them that they won’t suddenly miss anything if they just go to the bathroom.

The doctor finds them then, and Clarke vaguely remembers her from some of her mother’s work parties, while Clarke was growing up. Dr. Tsing.

“Your friend is going to make it,” she tells them, and they let out a single collective breath of relief.

“When can we see him?” Octavia demands, and Dr. Tsing checks the chart in her hands with a frown.

“Not until tomorrow, at least. He’s under some heavy anesthetic, and won’t be awake for a while. You can come back during visiting hours.” It’s clearly a dismissal, but none of them quite know what to do. They’ve spent so much of their time and energy waiting for news, and now that they have it, they aren’t sure what their next step should be.

“You should all probably go home,” Bellamy says, rubbing a hand down his face. Clarke doesn’t know when he last slept, but the bruising under his eyes says it’s been a while. “Get some rest. Take a shower. We can come back in the morning, to check in.”

Monty nods numbly, leaning heavily on Harper as they wander down the hall. Octavia still looks like her insides are on fire, spoiling for a fight, but she doesn’t try to argue. Bellamy doesn’t let go of Clarke’s hand until they reach the parking lot, and they have to separate, to get in his car.

He doesn’t ask if she’s going home with them, and she’s glad. It isn’t really a question.

Octavia disappears into her room without a word, leaving Bellamy and Clarke alone in the living room.

“Thanks for coming,” Bellamy says on a sigh, and he looks like he might collapse where he’s standing.

“Of course.”

“I just didn’t,” Bellamy shakes his head, like he’s clearing it. “I didn’t know how to do this, without you.”

Clarke slides her arms around him. “You don’t have to.”

He lets her shower first, and she doesn’t ask before she slides into his bed, because that isn’t a question either.

“I missed you,” she whispers, studying his freckles while his eyes are closed. His arms tighten where they’re curled around her, and she sighs her way into sleep.

They visit Jasper in the morning, and he’s awake.

“Hey, it’s my fanclub,” he grins, when they walk in as a group. His room is bright from the sun and white walls, and there are bandages around both of his wrists, which Clarke decidedly does not look at.

They’ve brought him gifts from the shop downstairs--flowers and stuffed bears and other cheap presents that don’t mean much, other than they _care_. Monty’s brought him a DS to play while he’s bored, which Jasper clearly appreciates.

He chatters on aimlessly, just like he might have done any other day, except this _isn’t_ any other day. It’s the day after he tried to _kill himself_ , and he’s acting like everything’s fine. And none of them are sure how to react to that, so they are too.

Monty is clearly the most uncomfortable, fidgeting for twenty minutes, until finally Jasper says “I wonder if this’ll get me out of exams,” and he just walks out.

“I’ll go,” Clarke offers, following after him. She and Monty had always had a clear, easy understanding, and she finds him staring resolutely at a vending machine around the corner.

“I didn’t notice,” he says, after a moment. “He’s my _best friend_ , and I didn’t notice that anything was wrong. I didn’t notice he was--” he takes a sharp, staggering breath. “How could I not _know_?”

He starts crying, deep shuddering sobs, and Clarke pulls him in as tightly as she can, trying to hold him together. “Sometimes they try really hard to hide it,” she says, rubbing his back the way Bellamy does when she’s upset. “So no one will know. It’s no one’s fault, Monty.”

She stays with him until his breathing evens out, and he pulls back with one last sniff, wiping at his eyes with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

“I don’t think I can go back,” he says, and she squeezes his hand.

“That’s okay. I’ll tell them you had to go home.”

Octavia and Jasper are alone when Clarke gets back to the room, and she hesitates outside the doorway at the sound of Jasper’s voice, low and serious. From this angle she can see that O has climbed up beside him, with an arm around his shoulders while he speaks.

“I guess I just...didn’t want to be here anymore, you know? I don’t--I’m not _sad_ , I’m just...tired.”

“We can be crazy together,” Octavia tells him, and Clarke schools her face before she walks in.

“Monty had to leave early,” she says, all fake cheer. “Want to see if we can get pizza delivered here?”

Clarke spends the next two weeks going back and forth between the Blake house and the hospital. After a few days, Jasper is moved to the psyche ward, which is apparently standard procedure after a suicide attempt, so then they start to visit him there.

He’s released the day before Thanksgiving, and Octavia wants to throw a party.

“You always want to throw a party,” Bellamy points out.

“Yeah but this is for Jas,” she says, and that’s really all it takes.

Bellamy gets Murphy to come over, and together they make an astonishing amount of food while Clarke, Octavia and Monty work on the decorations. They buy a bunch of Star Wars-themed supplies, even though Clarke doesn’t think Jasper even likes Star Wars all that much, and they even make a banner to hang up right inside the door, that says THANKS FOR NOT DYING.

Monty wanted to make a special batch of moonshine for the occasion, but Bellamy and Clarke pointed out that might not be the best idea, in their current situation.

Bellamy goes to pick up Jasper once he’s discharged, and Jasper grins when he steps inside. The first thing he sees is the banner. “Wow, you guys really have a way with words.”

Octavia straps a party hat on his head. “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

They gorge themselves on food, and then Monty and Jasper get in an argument about the name of some side character from the Star Wars prequels, which obviously means that they have to watch them _all_ , and in numerical order.

Everyone else is asleep by Episode Seven, and Clarke follows Bellamy upstairs.

“How was the ride home?” she asks, as they crawl in side by side, fitting together under the sheets.

“Awkward,” he says, and she snorts into the pillow. Of course he wouldn’t sugar coat it. “I dunno--I tried to talk to him. He listened, but I don’t know if it’ll stick. I guess we’ll see.”

Clarke finds his hand in the dark, and folds their fingers together.

She knows she shouldn’t get used to this--the way he feels wrapped around her, his warmth and steady pulse. She shouldn’t get used to molding herself to him while they sleep, or waking up tangled around him, more well-rested than she’s felt in months. Waking up to the feel of him hard, pressed against her, making her mouth water with want.

They still aren’t talking about it.

Clarke wakes up before him the day after the party and stumbles downstairs, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

She finds Jasper awake on the couch, smoking a joint, and snorts. “Of course you’re getting high, the second that you’re out of the hospital.”

“Hey,” Jasper tips his head back and blows a smoke ring at her, smiling sloppily, even with the bandages still around both wrists. “This is _medicinal_.”

Clarke does spend the last day of break with her parents--and Marcus--meeting up with them at a fancy Italian restaurant for dinner. She answers all their questions about school, and new friends, and new _friends_ , with her mother’s obligatory “do you have a significant other you’re not telling us about?” tone.

And she loves her parents, she does, and she misses them, but she can’t help feeling relieved when Bellamy picks her up after, and takes her home.

He drives her back to the bus stop before his shift in the morning, and for a moment when she hugs him, she thinks about just not letting go. She thinks about telling him she loves him, she’s in love with him, and she wants to keep him and grow old.

“I’ll see you at Christmas,” he says, pulling back with a smile more sad than sweet.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “See you.”

As goodbyes go, it’s weak, but when she’s halfway to Polis her phone blinks with a message from him.

_It was really great to see you, princess._

_I missed you too._

 

Clarke discovers, sort of accidentally, that she likes casual sex.

It happens her first night back from home, still raw and aching from all the emotions that the trip had left her with, when she stumbles in on Niylah naked in the bathroom.

It isn’t unusual, to walk in on girls in some level of undress. It’s a bathroom shared between twenty girls in their dorm, and most of them are comfortable enough with their bodies that they don’t mind shaving their legs at the sink, or changing outside the shower stalls.

But Clarke is still buzzing from everything that’s happened, and she can’t help letting her gaze linger, which Niylah notices.

She lets Clarke drag her into one of the shower stalls, rushing through getting undressed, kissing her harsh and needy.

Niylah catches her hand, just for a second. “I’m not looking for anything serious.”

Clarke thinks about Niylah, who turns everything into a joke just to make other people laugh, who’s sweet and likes to make sugar cookies in the dorm kitchen. Clarke thinks that in another life, she might have fallen in love with her.

But this isn’t another life. “Me neither,” she says, and eats her out against the shower wall.

She and Niylah hook up a few more times after that, always fun and never serious. Clarke doesn’t exclusively seek out only girls, but that’s what ends up happening. She just can’t help comparing every boy she sees to Bellamy, marking every difference, every way they’re inferior. Girls make for better distractions. And she _likes_ girls.

But she loves Bellamy, which is why this is casual. Just a way to alleviate some stress. Both parties get orgasms, and no one gets hurt. Everybody wins.

As far as she knows, Bellamy isn’t doing anything serious either. She’s asked Octavia about it a few times, pointedly casual, until Octavia got fed up and just told her to ask him, herself.

Clarke still talks to Bellamy nearly everyday, but she doesn’t end up seeing him again until the end of the summer.

She spends Christmas with her dad and his family, upstate. And then Raven and Wells put together a beach trip for Spring Break, and after that Clarke has a summer internship in the city.

Finally, she arrives back in Ark on the last Friday of summer, because she really did mean it when she said she’ll never miss an End of Summer Extravaganza.

It’s been months since she’s been back to her hometown, and it feels relatively unchanged, but Clarke still finds herself cataloguing everything as she passes it, making sure it’s all intact, exactly as she remembers.

Some things aren’t; they’re renovating the movie theater downtown, and what used to be a Blockbuster Videos is now a gas station, and they started building a new development where there used to be a bunch of trees.

But everything that matters is as she left it, and Clarke finds her bike in the garage, settling on it for the first time in what feels like forever.

She’d thought about bringing it with her to Polis, but she’d had nowhere to keep it safe from thieves or weather, and she could walk everywhere on campus, and there was always the bus, so it didn’t seem worth it in the end.

Now she pedals down the route she’s had memorized since she was nine, rolling up the familiar gravel drive, eyes raking over the age-stained house with a rush of fondness.

She loves this house. She thinks she’ll always love it, even if Bellamy and Octavia move away, even if it gets boarded up or sold to someone new. It will still always be the Blake house, her favorite getaway, her home.

She finds Bellamy around the back, fiddling with the grill, just like so many times before.

Clarke leans up to put her hands over his eyes. “Guess who?”

She can hear his smile. “Alicia Vikander.”

She laughs, pulling away so he can turn around and face her. “Not Alicia Vikander, sorry.”

“Yeah, I’m really disappointed,” he says, but his face gives him away. He takes her in, and somehow brightens even more. “Fuck, I’ve missed you.”

Clarke ducks her head, just a little, because if she keeps looking at him she’s _going_ to tell him, just blurt everything out in a pile of word vomit, and honestly she’s planned too much to let that happen. “Me too.”

Others trickle in slowly as the evening wanes on, and Clarke makes a point to say hi to the people she’s missed, and catch each other up on their lives, but she always makes her way back to Bellamy, and he seems to keep making his way back to her, like they’re magnets honing in on each other.

“We’re graduates now, bitches!” Octavia howls at the moon like a wolf, throwing her cap into the fire. The crowd cheers, the rest of the newly minted graduates following suit, like some sort of weird pagan ritual.

She’s drunk when she finds her way over to Clarke and Bellamy, and throws her arms around them both, sagging a little in between them. “You’re my _favorites_ ,” she says.

Bellamy grins and flicks at one of her braids. “You’re gonna be totally miserable in the morning.”

Octavia makes a face at the thought, and then turns to Clarke. “I’m glad you came back.”

“I’ll always come back,” Clarke says, a little exasperated, and when she looks at Bellamy, she finds he’s already looking at her.

Octavia is oblivious, choosing instead to smack a wet slobbery kiss to each of their cheeks, and then march over to the food table, because she has priorities.

“You did a good job with her,” Clarke says, watching as Octavia gets sidetracked by the electric slide.

“Yeah?” Bellamy asks, amused. “You know you’re only like, a _year_ older.”

“A year and a half.”

Bellamy hums, looking out at the crowd again. “I’ve been thinking about switching jobs.”

“Really? What do you want to do?”

He runs a hand through his hair, a sign he’s unsure. “I don’t know. Whatever I can do, with an Associates in history? I know the usual answer is to just get a teaching certificate, but--fuck, I don’t know if I’m that good with kids.”

“You’re great with kids,” Clarke says, automatic, because it’s true. The scene in front of them is proof of that--dozens of teenagers who depended on Bellamy, because he always pulled through.

But he doesn’t look convinced. “Would you trust me with your kids, Clarke?” he asks, sardonic.

Clarke’s first thought is _I would trust you with_ our _kids_ , but she swallows it down with the hard cider. She isn’t drunk enough for loose-lipped confessions, yet. “More than anyone,” she says instead, which really isn’t that much better.

His lashes flutter, looking at her, and he swallows before glancing away. “Their funeral.”

She’ll let it go, for now. She’s planning to have a lot of time to spend convincing Bellamy that he’s worth every ounce of love and trust he can get from the world.

Miller starts telling ghost stories around the fire at one point, and Clarke and Bellamy are sitting so close that their hips and thighs and shoulders are pressed together, so they can each feel every movement that the other makes. She takes his hand, but not because the stories are scary, and he lets her.

It doesn’t feel like she’s getting away with anything, anymore, when she touches him like this. It feels like they’re leading up to something.

She doesn’t wait until the party is dying down, and the sun is starting to graze the horizon, before she tugs Bellamy away from the crowd.

He trails her along the grass to their sofa, sitting secluded and far enough away that none of the others will see them unless they come looking.

She really hopes they won’t come looking.

Bellamy sits down beside her on the cushion, close enough that she can feel his chest move with each breath. “So how was your first year as a college student?”

“Fine,” Clarke says, and then takes a breath because _this is it_. “I got a lot of life experience.”

His gaze flicks to her, just for a moment, and then away. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she wets her lips, and she _knows_ he sees it. She slides a hand out slowly, so he can stop her if he wants, and lets it rest on his thigh. It doesn’t have to be anything, if he doesn’t want, but then he breathes in sharply, and he doesn’t push her away. “I think I’m pretty set, actually. On all my options. I know what I want”

Now Bellamy turns to her, just inches away, eyes bright and warm in the darkness. “And it’s me?”

“It’s always been you.”

This kiss isn’t a conversation at all. He isn’t trying to convince her; he just wants to kiss her, and she kisses him back.

When they’re both grinning too much to kiss properly, they pull apart just enough that he can say “I guess it makes sense. We _are_ married.”

Clarke pinches his arm when he laughs. “You’re such a brat.”

Bellamy leans in, brushing his nose against her cheek, and she can feel the flash of teeth when he smiles. “A brat you’re in love with.”

It’s the first time either of them has addressed it, and she can feel him go a little tense under her hands. “There’s no accounting for taste,” she decides, and kisses him again, wetter and deeper, until he’s groaning into her mouth.

Clarke presses against him, trying to get closer, until she just slides into his lap with a sigh, only breaking the kiss to pull off her shirt. Bellamy stares, a little slack-jawed, and she’d be lying if she said she doesn’t appreciate it.

“They’re just boobs,” she teases. “You’ve seen them before.”

“Not yours,” he says, leaning in to wrap his mouth around a nipple, through the lace of her bra. “Not like this.”

He keeps going, mouthing at her through the material, until she’s writhing and desperate in his lap, and finally just reaches up to unsnap the damn thing and yank it off.

“Fuck,” he hisses, staring up at her, looking sliced open. “Clarke--”

“I love you,” she kisses the skin of his jaw, tasting the salt there. “I’m in love with you, and have been for a while. Please don’t tell me this can’t happen.”

“It’s definitely happening,” Bellamy says, voice low and ruined, sending a shiver up her spine. “I love you too.”

She smiles, can’t really help it. She can’t reign it in, not even a little, because--it’s finally happening. _They’re_ finally happening, and it’s somehow even better than she thought it would be, because it’s _real_.

Bellamy reaches up and thumbs at the skin of her cheek, fingers coming back wet. “You’re crying.”

“I’m happy,” she says, and he kisses her.

They’re greedy after that, fumbling and laughing and stopping every few seconds just to get lost in another kiss.

“How many teenagers do you think have had sex on this couch?” Clarke asks, in between breaths while Bellamy slides a finger inside her, grinding up until she whines.

There’s a frown in his voice. “Is that your way of saying you want to finish this inside?”

They’re both half-naked, with his fingers inside her, and if they move now she might actually _die_.

“Fuck, no,” she gasps, and he quickens his pace, she’s pretty sure because he wants to see if he can make her shut up completely. “I just meant--the grass is cleaner.”

He waits until she comes once against his hand, before lifting her up, and laying her down on the ground in front of the sofa. It offers a little coverage, if anyone drunkenly wanders over looking for a place to piss, but they’re still out in the open, and Clarke can’t help feeling a little excited about it.

“I might have a public sex kink,” she tells him, and he presses a laugh against her neck.

“You might actually be perfect.”

He slides his jeans down, and Clarke bites her lip as she takes in his dick. She reaches down, closing a hand around it, grinning when he hisses at the touch.

“Have you ever--?” He bites her shoulder when she gives an experimental tug.

“Not with a guy,” she admits, and he kisses her, all warm reassurance.

“I’ll go slow,” he promises. “Just--tell me what you like, and what you don’t.”

He does go slow, and she does tell him, until they’re moving together and she can’t manage to say much at all. The grass is wet and cool against her back, his hands warm against her skin, voice low in her ear as he whispers all sorts of things that leave her panting. How _good_ she feels, how wet she is, how _fucking perfect, babe, fuck_.

Bellamy speeds up eventually, making her thighs clench around him, and Clarke gets tired of not kissing him, so she tugs his hair and brings his mouth back to hers. His tongue is still tracing the seam of her lips when she comes, and she swallows his groan when he follows.

They lie in the grass for a moment, cooling off, heads tipped back towards the stars up above them.

“You talk too much,” she says, once she’s caught her breath.

“Yeah you seemed like you really hated it,” he agrees, and she rolls over to tuck herself against him, laughing.

Clarke traces the tendons in his neck, the lines of his collarbones, the planes of his chest, and he watches her. Her voice is a whisper, even though she can still hear the sounds of the party, and knows that they won’t be heard. “You’re the love of my life, Bellamy Blake.” She knows it’s too early, but--it’s late, too. It might be just right, considering.

Bellamy takes her hand, brings her fingers to his lips. She falls asleep to his smile.

Clarke wakes around sunup, and finds herself covered with a quilt that certainly wasn’t there when she fell asleep. Bellamy must have gotten it in the night.

He’s curled up around her, also under the quilt, and she’s profoundly grateful for that when Octavia finds them, looking very unimpressed.

“This is a courtesy call,” she says, wrinkling her nose at the sight of Bellamy and Clarke, naked and _canoodling_. “Letting you know that I have made breakfast.”

“ _You_ made breakfast?” Clarke asks, before she can help herself. Octavia scowls at her.

“ _Yes_ and if you two aren’t inside in the next ten minutes, I’m flushing yours down the toilet.” She marches back towards the house, and Clarke rolls over, to wake Bellamy.

His face splits into a lazy smile when he sees her, and he leans in for a kiss. His breath is stale and she can’t stand the aftertaste of cider, but then hers can’t be much better, and she’s kissing _Bellamy_. She can handle some morning breath, for that.

“Your sister made breakfast,” she murmurs against his lips.

“I didn’t think she knew where the stove _was_ ,” he admits, and they start to collect their clothes, where they’d tossed them aside haphazardly.

He takes her hand as they wander across the yard, and she tugs at it when she notices Monty and Miller, curled up under a blanket by the fire pit, having fallen asleep in each other’s arms.

“It’s about time,” Bellamy grumbles.

“What, you aren’t going to punch Miller because he’s _too old_ ?” she teases, and he actually _flushes_ , to her delight.

“I may have been projecting,” he admits.

“BREAKFAST!” Octavia shouts from inside the house, like a battle cry, and Clarke tries not to laugh when Monty startles awake, and falls over.

She does notice Jasper give him a high five, and she smiles against Bellamy’s shoulder.

“What did you burn, O?” Bellamy asks cheerfully, and Octavia aims a spatula at him, like a knife.

“Don’t start with me. Clarke might find you cute, but I’m not that delusional.”

“He’s _very_ cute,” Clarke agrees, and he leans down to kiss her.

Octavia throws a grape at their heads.

“We can go be cute in my room, together,” he grins, pulling back, and Clarke squeezes his hand.

“After breakfast.” She’s got her priorities, after all.

And they have time.


End file.
